* 
eae 
pau pehewnerasut 
ne 


UNIVERSITY OF 
ILLINOIS LIBRARY 


j 
Ay 


brag et 
: yay | 
; wee 
CAI 


- 


‘NAS 


“92 ie 
4, be 
ae heh bis 
a alee 


og 


Digitized by the Internet Archiv 
in 2022 with funding from : 


University of Illinois Urbana: -Cham 
} An? By : 


Tt i reg 
ne si 


5 SS ee i ee ee 


a, 


Py) 


: RAY 
Sah, 


Re 


oa 


Sere 


1 yiha Rh 
Me Whey Wal Oe Lh 
MSs ROUSE Yat f 


aa 
a 


NICOLAS POUSSIN 


ota me ere 


=e” © % 
a e 
var’ oe ay ; } 
, 7 Mi 
= — ke: ? a Ss 
- - : . "ies - Por : 
ares | a: poW DAE bid 
7 ‘ * o » \ 
— ’ Ke - ad ‘i ¢ ~~ < 4 
a Y = 7 ‘ > a? § 7 s 1 ' 
a - - —_ . 
4 ’ ee bob ; 
i baat ct 
6s. a - : 0s =’ "Ta _ ' 
; a4 ; 
4 f L 
a © nd 7 7 i) ear i 
a a ‘ rc . : 
= > ww . A v Nal 2 
7 , _ Fie! } , ot j i 
7 ? Pts ry ‘ i iy eS9D 
bs ; pa 7 ‘ nats 
7. é 7 ‘ . & i 
= oF - ba oa ‘ 


ol ee By et ae 


PORTRAIT OF NICOLAS POUSSIN 


by himself (painted in 1650 for 
M. de Chantelou). (Louvre) 


(Frontispiece) 


Nicolas Poussin 


by Hsther Sutro wits 
an Introduction by 


William Rothenstein 


Boston & London 
The Medici Society Inc. 


755 BOYLSTON STREET BOSTON 


BOS 


anh. gr} A RAAPAIEN 


Made and printed in Great Britain by Charles Whittingham — 
and Griggs (Printers), Ltd., London. 


Contents 


CHAP. PAGE 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7 
INTRODUCTION II 

I. EARLY YEARS De 
II, ESTABLISHMENT IN ROME 31 
III. “‘ PREMIER PEINTRE DU ROI” 47 
IV. RETURN TO ROME 62 
V. LAST YEARS rig 

VI. NOTES ON TECHNIQUE 89 

VII. HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE 99 
LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED Hu? 


y DS } Ss 4 , 
Para ae ¥, 
ue BA 2 

\ } % uy ets 


re! 


ao 


~ 


a. 
is 


nai 


a 


' 
; 


List of Illustrations 


. Portrait of Poussin by Himself. Painted in 


1650 for M.de Chantelou. Louvre. 


Frontispiece 


2. The Concert. Painted 1630-35. Louvre. 
3. The PhiliStines smitten by the Plague. 


OV Nn 


Painted in 1630. Louvre. 


. The Massacre of the Innocents. Chantilly 


Museum. 

The Education of Bacchus. National Gallery 
The Triumph of Flora. Painted in 1630 for 
Cardinal Omodei. Louvre. © 
Bacchanalian Scene. Louvre. 


. The Adoration of the Magi. Painted in 


1633. Dresden Gallery. (A replica is in 
the Dulwich Gallery.) 

Sleeping Venus with Cupids. Painted 
before 1640. Dresden Gallery. 


. The Triumph eof David. Dulwich Gallery. 
II. 


Bacchanalian Scene in a Wood. Painted 
1632-36. Cassel Museum. 


7 


TO FACE 


PAGE 


18 


26 


30 
32 


36 
40 
44 


46 
§O0 


58 


I2. 


DLs 


Nicolas Poussin 


The Nursing of Fupiter. Painted 1633-36. 
Dulwich Gallery. 


. The Inspiration of Apollo. Painted 1636- 


38. Recently bought from the Hope 
Collection for the Louvre. 


. Pan and Syrinx. Painted 1637-39 for La 


Fleur. Dresden Gallery. 


. Lhe Israelites gathering Manna in the Desert. 


Painted in 1638 for M. de Chantelou. 


Louvre. 


. Venus surprised by Satyrs. Painted before 


1640. National Gallery. 


. Jupiter nourished by the goat Amalthea. 


Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin. 


. Bacchanalian Dance. Painted for Riche- 


lieu before 1640. National Gallery. 


. The Shepherds of Arcady, or Happiness 


Menaced by Death. Louvre. 

The Traveller washing his Feet at a Fountain: 

Phocion. Painted for M. Cérisier in 

1648. National Gallery. 

The Burial of Phocion. Painted for M. 
8 


TO FACE 
PAGE 


62 


64 


68 


72 
76 
78 
82 


go 


94 


List of Illustrations 


TO FACE 
PAGE 


Cérisier and recently discovered in Jersey 


and bought by Les Amis du Louvre. 96 
22. Eliezer and Rebecca. Painted in 1648 for 

M. Pointel. Louvre. 100 
23. The Blind Men of Jericho. Painted in 1650. 

Louvre. 104 


24. The Deluge, or Winter of the Four Seasons. 
Painted for the duc de Richelieu, 1660- 
64. Louvre: 108 


e 


Introduction 
RS. SUTRO gives, in this the first English 


study of Poussin, what chiefly concerns 

her readers-—a plain account of the life 
of a painter devoted to his art. She has chosen to 
inform those who, admiring the works, wish to know 
what manner of man he was who created them, 
rather than to comment on Poussin’s methods or 
style. 

There is much ignorance, in spite of the easy access 
to libraries, of men who have passed their lives in the 
pursuit of truth. Devotion to wine, women, and 
song is held to bea natural accompaniment to genius; 
if any of the three could be dispensed with, it would 
be song. Yet the biographies of artists prove this 
belief to be a heresy. A good artist must have at his 
command many resources. For he is the God of his 
own creations, and whether these are to give out a 
radiant and vigorous life or are to languish and die 
early depends solely upon his selflessness and devo- 
tion. Heavy and incessant claims are made on him by 
the creatures of his own hand and brain. It 1s small 
wonder, then, that men of fruitful creative genius 

II 


Nicolas Poussin 


hold aloof from the occupations and enjoyments 
which seem important to others ; they offend, 
indeed, against social customs, not because they have 
been self-indulgent, but for the reason that they have 
obeyed austerer laws and a stricter discipline. Every 
artist hears within him the voice which urges that 
unless he is creating he is fretting and denying his 
spirit. It is no use waiting for inspiration. Constant 
practice is the net spread for truth ; for truth, like a 
wild creature, is shy and wary, and unless the net be 
unsuspected and ever ready, it may be spread in vain. 

No painter pursued his daily task more ardently 
than Poussin. He knew that, if something of the 
radiance and dignity of the face of the world were to 
be enticed into his work, he must subject himself to 
the discipline of which form itself is the significant 
symbol. For is not form an aspect of the discipline 
imposed upon matter by the unknown laws of the 
Universe ? No artist copies the appearance of things 
for the mere pleasure of imitation. ‘This is a heresy 
shared by Plato and many critics since his time. He 
pursues contour and mass because he has an intuitive 
faith that, by subje@ting his work to the discipline of 
appearance, something of the unknowable reality may 

12 


Introduction 


-unconsciously be incorporated into his work. And 
if some such precipitation takes place, if this miracle 
of crystallization can happen, how wasted the hours 
when, through other occupations, it is made im- 
possible! Here we have the key to Poussin’s life. 
His love for Italy, where he could readily obtain nobly 
made models and at the same time have examples of 
the art which, in his eyes, came nearest the dignity of 
nature. In Italy he had no fear of becoming involved 
in the quarrels and costly privileges and rewards of a 
Court or an Academy. Patriotism to him was faith- 
fulness to his art. His duty to his country was to 
educate and perfect his own spirit. Yet though he 
chose Italy as his home, he remained essentially 
French in that happy admixture of severity of style 
with a lyrical conception of form and subject matter. 

He was aware, in the examples of ancient sculpture 
which were constantly coming to light in Italy, of a 
daemonic energy held in restraint by a sternly 
disciplined form. Greek and Roman works served 
him not merely as models, but rather as a justification 
of his own conclusions and intuitions. In a similar 
way the humanists of the Renaissance used the newly 
discovered Greek learning as an opportunity for a 


LS 


Nicolas Poussin 


more fearless pursuit of enlightenment, a more open 
and courageous examination of moral and scientific 
values. Like his great successors, Ingres and Millet, 
Poussin could pay full homage to the genius of the 
past without denying anything to the powerful 
impulses of his own creative vitality. 


W. RoTHENSTEIN. 


NICOLAS POUSSIN 
Chapter One: Early . Years 


FTER the battle of Ivry, in the year 1590, 
A« little town of Vernon, menaced with 
sack and pillage, threw open its gates to 
the victorious army of Henry of Navarre. Among 
the soldiers who entered the town and were quartered 
there was one Jean Poussin. Very little is known of 
him: his origin, his education, his culture, if he had 
any, the temper of his mind—all these are left to 
conjecture. Some hold that he came from Soissons, 
and belonged to a noble family who lost all their 
possessions during the civil wars; but this is unlikely, 
as no document that has come to light has xodle 
homme or écuyer attached to his signature. All we 
can learn about him is that he was a professional 
soldier, without a commission, fighting in many parts 
of Europe, and that he served under Charles IX, 
Henry III, and Henry IV. 

We know what the soldier’s life was in the late 
sixteenth century: he was poorly paid, and sometimes 
not paid at all; he lived on the inhabitants of the 
towns, and when these were sacked or pillaged he, 
no doubt, took his very good share. Plunder was the 


15 B 


Nicolas Poussin 


soldier’s natural right with which no commander 
dared to interfere; loot, as often as not, took the 
place of pay. This rough-and-tumble existence had 
probably been Jean Poussin’s for close on thirty 
years. . 

When he entered the town of Vernon he was 
forty-six, and had not made his fortune; he was weary 
of soldiering and eager to settle down. He is said 
to have had a good appearance, and to have been 
attractive to women. He was billeted on Nicolas 
Delaisement, alderman of the town, a man in comfort- 
able circumstances belonging to the petite bourgeoisie. 
Marie Le Moyne, his widowed daughter, lived with 
him and kept house. She had been married to Claude 
Le Moyne, attorney, of the same town, and she had 
by him, in 1582, a daughter named Renée. Her 
husband had been dead for some years when Jean 
Poussin came to live under her father’s roof. He 
had ample opportunity for wooing her and her small 
dot which, doubtless, played a considerable part in this 
middle-aged romance. We have no record of what 
Nicolas Delaisement thought of the attentions of 
this impecunious soldier, no longer in his first youth. 
In any case, if there was opposition, it was not of a 
very serious nature, for the couple were married in 
1592; and soon after the wedding retired to the 
little village of Villers, near Les Andelys, where the 

16 


Early Years 


widow owned some small property. Here, in a 
humble thatched cottage overlooking the winding 
Seine and its fresh green meadows, Nicolas Poussin 
was born. There is no doubt of the day or the month 
of his birth, but there seems some uncertainty 
whether it was in 1593 or 1594. The best authorities, 
however, have decided for 15th June 1594, and that 
is the date generally accepted. 

The site of his birthplace is still known as the 
“© Clos Poussin’’; in the eighteenth century it was 
called “* La Poussiniére.”’ It stands on the summit of 
a little hill which is climbed by a path bordered with 
tall poplars. One gnarled and solitary pear-tree marks 
the site of the orchard, but not a trace remains of the 
cottage. Life in this retired spot must have been one 
of absolute seclusion. At the time Jean Poussin and 
his wife settled there, the village consisted of some 
thirty or forty cottages; these had all disappeared by 
the eighteenth century. ‘The couple lived on the 
widow’s small income and the produce of their 
orchard and fields, a life very similar to that of the 
Normandy peasant of to-day. 

M. Advielle, who has made such a careful study of 
everything connected with the artist, tells us in his 
Récherches sur Nicolas Poussin et sa famille that the 
mother of the most learned of painters was a peasant, 
incapable of writing her own name. M. Magne, 


17 


Nicolas Poussin 


however, in his searching and elaborate biography, 
has proved that the father of Marie Delaisement 
belonged to the petite bourgeoisie; the two authorities 
are therefore at slight variance, but both are agreed 
that, when she married Jean Poussin and settled 
down at Villers, she lived the life of an ordinary 
peasant. In his letters, curiously enough, Nicolas 
scarcely makes any reference to his parents, but it 
must be borne in mind that the correspondence that 
has survived only dates from 1639, when he was 
forty-five. In later years, long after he had settled 
in Rome, he refers to his Normandy relatives as “‘ ces 
étres ignorants et grossiers,”’ with whom he had long 
since broken off all connection. And yet some feeling 
for the family must have remained, for when he was 
dying he made his will in favour of the grandchildren 
of his half-sister, Renée Le Moyne. These were his 
only living relatives, for his wife had died in the 
previous year, and no child had ever been born to 
them. 

Very little is known of Nicolas’s early education. 
The college of Les Andelys was not then founded. 
We know that his passion for drawing showed itself 
very early, and that it was not encouraged by his 
father, who would have liked him to fill some comfort- 
able, lucrative post in Vernon, the neighbouring 
town. Nicolas was always a studious boy and fond 

18 


THE CONCERT 


Painted 1630-35. (Louvre) 


(to face p. 18) 


i SRT TN 7 ee 


0 


Early Years 


of reading—a taste which never left him. His early 
years were in striking contrast to those of Claude 
Gellée, his contemporary, who at this time was 
roaming about Lorraine, absorbed in the study of 
nature, but unable to read or write. 

Poussin must have received some instruction in 
Latin and other subjects from the canons of the 
collegiate school of Grand-Andelys, and quite soon 
showed unusual intelligence and aptitude. Some of 
his biographers declare that his Latin was always 
better than his French. He was never able to express 
himself with ease when writing, and after his long 
stay in Italy his idiom became somewhat italianized. 
Nothing, however, could keep the lad from drawing, 
and with or without his father’s consent, he took some 
preliminary lessons from a Rouen professor, Noél 
Jouvenet. But his first, and perhaps his only real, 
master—for Poussin at an early stage broke away 
from all school teaching—was Quentin Varin. He 
was a man with some enthusiasm and not without 
talent, who, fortunately for Nicolas, came to Les 
Andelys in 1611 to decorate the Church of Notre 
Dame, where one of his pictures can still be seen. 

Born at Beauvais in 1575, Quentin Varin, as was 
the custom in those days, travelled all through France 
in search of work. In 1597 we find him apprenticed 
at Avignon, and one of his pictures, dated 1600, is 


Lo 


Nicolas Poussin 


still in the town museum. But he really belonged to 
the north of France, and gradually made his way 
back to Amiens, where he finally settled down and 
married. In 1616 he went to Paris, and in the follow- 
ing year worked for Marie de Médicis on the decora- 
tion of the Petit Luxembourg. In 1623 he was 
created peintre ordinaire du Roi and he died four years 
later. 

Considering the condition of French art at that 
time, he was not such a bad painter; he certainly had 
a gift for colour. ‘There are two of his pictures in 
Paris at this day: “‘ The Presentation in the Temple” 
in a chapel at Saint Germain-des-Prés, and “ Saint 
Borromeus distributing Alms ”’ at Saint-Etienne-du- 
Mont. : 

There is no doubt that Poussin was very much 
influenced by Varin, and encouraged by him to take 
up painting as a career. Recognizing the boy’s un- 
usual talent, Varin gave him lessons in drawing and 
taught him to paint in oils and in distemper. When 
Varin left Les Andelys the boy evidently found life 
there intolerable, for one day, without a word to his 
parents, he packed up his wallet and quietly set out 
for Paris. 

Thomas Corneille, in his short biography of the 
artist in the Dictionnaire Universel historique et critique, 
declares that Nicolas got into some trouble at Les 

20 


a _ 


Early Years 


Andelys, and went away to avoid the embarrassing 
consequences. ‘This story will probably have been 
the merest hearsay, for we have no confirmation, or 
even reference to it, from either of Poussin’s authori- 
tative biographers, Félibien or Bellori. 

We may as well state here that, thanks to these two 
contemporaries, we know a great deal more about 
Poussin than we do about most of the old masters. 
Félibien was secretary to the French Embassy at 
Rome in 1647, and later became Keeper of the King’s 
Cabinet of Antiquities. In his Eusretiens sur les vies et 
sur les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et 
modernes, published 1n 1685, he devoted thirty-six 
pages to the life of Poussin. Bellori brought out his 
Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Moderni in 1672, 
seven years after Poussin’s death. Bellori was a good 
historian and was interested and well informed in all 
technical matters; to his biography he added the 
Osservazioni found in Poussin’s handwriting in 
Cardinal Massimi’s library. Both Félibien and 
Bellori knew Poussin personally, but unfortunately 
not until he was past middle age; we are indebted 
to them for a great many facts about his early years 
and about his life in Rome. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century 
French art was at a very low ebb. One might almost 
say that there was no Frenchart. The painters of the 

21 


Nicolas Poussin 


day had become shallow and superficial, and repeated 
the same subjects again and again with stereotyped 
conventionality. The first years were barren; Claude 
Gellée, Mignard, Sébastian Bourdon, Le Sueur, 
Jacques Stella, Lebrun, Simon Vouet, and Philippe 
de Champagne were still children at school or 
Students. ‘These were the important painters of the 
period, but Nicolas Poussin was destined to dominate 
the art of the century. 

In such conditions it is not surprising that, when 
he came to Paris in 1612, he had considerable difh- 
culty in finding a suitable master. At first he tried 
the school of a Lorraine painter, Georges Lalleman, 
who had some reputation at that time ; but he only 
remained there.a very few weeks. From Lalleman he 
went to the Flemish portrait painter, Ferdinand Elle, 
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but, though Elle was 
a good craftsman, portrait painting was not 1n Pous- 
sin’s line, and he soon left him, too, to try yet another 
master, whose name has not been mentioned by 
either of his biographers. 

In Le Chef-d’euvre Inconnu Balzac introduces 
Poussin as a young man shortly after his arrival in 
Paris and describes him as living with a girl in the 
rue de la Harpe. The Flemish painter, Pourbus, is 
Stated to be an intimate friend of his, and the two 
have a strange and curious adventure with the painter 

22 


Early Years 


of the chef-d’wuvre inconnu. ‘There is no warrant for 
the story; itamusingly suggests the life of the student 
of 1830, but obviously has nothing in common with 
the actual experience of the enthusiastic youth who 
had run away from home two centuries before, and 
who endured a great deal of poverty and hardship in 
pursuit of his art. 

Poussin had one stroke of luck; he happened, 
after his arrival in Paris, to make the acquaintance of 
a young man from Poitou, who was deeply interested 
in painting. This young man asked Nicolas to live 
with him, an offer that must have been of the greatest 
service to a lad from the country without any means 
or connections. Unfortunately, the name of this 
Poitevin friend has never come to light, nor has it 
been possible to find out anything about him. This 
is to be regretted, for posterity certainly owes him 
some gratitude for having sheltered Nicolas Poussin 
at a moment when he was most in need of help. 
Later, when this same young man decided to return | 
to his home in Poitou, he invited Poussin to go with 
him. He had great schemes for the decoration of his 
chateau, which his friend was to carry out; but, 
unfortunately, he had reckoned without his mother. 
This lady appears to have had ideas of her own, and 
certainly no inclination for the arts. She evidently 
had no use for a painter, and set Nicolas all kinds of 


23 


Nicolas Poussin 


menial tasks, leaving him no time for his own work. 
At last, he could put up with it no longer, bade 
good-bye to his friend, and left the chateau. 

He had a bitter struggle before him; entirely 
without means he was obliged to tramp back the 
whole way from Poitou to Paris, sleeping in barns and 
outhouses, earning an occasional meal with his brush. 
He suffered intensely from hunger and fatigue. 
Never of a robust physique, on reaching Paris he was 
taken so ill from the exposure and privations that he 
was forced to seek the shelter of his father’s roof. 
Here, in the good Normandy air, he slowly recovered, 
but it took him twelve months to get well. His 
parents, however, were as unsympathetic as ever; 
they again tried to dissuade him from following the 
career he had chosen, and multiplied complaints and 
objections; itis not surprising, therefore, that as soon 
as he was strong enough, he set out once more on the 
road to Paris. This was the last time he was to see 
them, for he never returned to Les Andelys. 

An event occurred soon after which was to prove 
of the greatest value to his artistic development. 
Through his Poitevin friend he had made the 
acquaintance of Alexandre Courtois, who combined 
the offices of valet de chambre du Roi and keeper of his 
cabinet. Courtois, who was quartered in the Louvre, 
took an interest in the young man and gave him 


24 


Early Years 


access to all the treasures in his charge, thus introduc- 
ing Nicolas to Marc Antoine Raimondi’s famous 
engravings of the works of Giulio Romano and 
Raphael. The happy accident of his meeting with 
Courtois was to have an all-important influence on 
his life. Raphael in particular was a revelation. 
At last he had found an artist entirely in sympathy 
with his own half-realized dreams! Here was a 
master before whom he could bow down and worship! 
There was a remarkable affinity between the two 
minds. Both were austere, intellectual, and strongly 
drawn to the classic ideals. 

Poussin threw himself with fanatical enthusiasm 
into the study of these engravings. He copied them 
again and again; the poses of the figures, the dra- 
peries, the compositions. ‘That they were in mono- 
chrome only added to his pleasure, for his austere 
nature always made him shrink from the seductive 
qualities of colour, which he regarded as secondary 
and inferior in importance to design and drawing. 

The study of these drawings led Poussin to the 
great decision of his life: he must go to Rome to 
Study. He had at last discovered his true artistic 
goal; he was on the high road to finding himself. 
Henceforth his one aim was to be near the great 
masters of the Renaissance, to steep himseif in their 
work. To get to Rome became his dream, his one 


25 


Nicolas Poussin 


absorbing idea; but to realize it took him eight 
years. He made two fruitless attempts. In 1620 he 
took a boat from Marseilles to Genoa and got as far as 
Florence; but for some unknown reason, probably 
the lack of means, was compelled to return. At 
Lyons he was taken ill, and had to borrow money 
from a dealer whom he subsequently repaid with 
pictures. 

When he recovered he returned once more to his 
wandering life. In 1622 he is supposed to have been 
at Dijon; in the following year he was lodging at the 
Collége de Laon, at that time an artistic centre. Here 
he met Philippe de Champagne, with whom he 
formed a strong friendship. Philippe was his junior 
by nine years, but the two young men had much in 
common; both were poor, enthusiastic, and obsessed 
with the idea of getting to Rome. At this period, 
let us remember, Claude Gellée was living there, 
content to be doing the most menial work, so long 
as he could be near the great masterpieces of the past 
—it is well known that he was employed in the 
kitchen and cleaned the brushes of a landscape 
painter, Agostine T'assi. Poussin very soon made a 
second attempt to get to Italy, but this time only 
succeeded in reaching Lyons. There, strangely 
enough, he was stopped by an unknown person to 
whom he was under some obligation; all his savings 

26 


(gz *d 290f'0) 
(a1Ano7y) ‘ofgr ur pajureg 


HNOVId AHL AGT NALLINS SANILSITIHd AHL 
UNDAT 


"0104 


Early Years 


were swallowed up in payment of this debt, and he 
found himself with one écu in the world! As this 
would not take him to Rome, he spent it philo- 
sophically in a lively supper with some friends, and 
soon after was back againin Paris. His old master, 
Quentin Varin, then peintre ordinatre du Roi, is sup- 
posed to have helped him, and it was no doubt 
through him that Nicolas was commissioned to do 
some of the minor work in the decorations of the 
Luxembourg Palace. Rubens was then painting 
the twenty-five large canvases now in the Marie de 
Médicis Gallery at the Louvre; Poussin and his friend 
Philippe de Champagne were given some unim- 
portant work in the smaller apartments, under the 
painter Duchesne. 

But Poussin’s first success was near at hand. In 
1622 the Jesuit Fathers were celebrating the canon- 
ization of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier. 
There were to be rejoicings throughout the world. 
In Paris a magnificent féte was to be given, and 
artists of every description were invited to take part. 
According to both Félibien and Bellori, Poussin 
competed with many others in the decoration of the 
college; working day and night he painted in six 
days six panels in distemper representing the pious 
acts of the two Fathers. M. Magne, however, doubts 
whether the pictures were done in so short a time, 


27 


Nicolas Poussin 


as a chronicler of the period declares that the Jesuits 
took four months for the preparations. M. Magne 
also denies that Poussin was in competition with other 
artists. 

Among the crowd that flocked to the féte was the 
Italian poet, Gianbattista Marino. ‘This person, 
known in France as the Chevalier Marin, was then 
the idol of Paris. He was received with open arms 
at the Hotel Rambouillet; the King allowed him a 
handsome pension, and, though he was fifty-three, 
the ladies were greatly attracted by his languid eyes, 
his scented beard, and his ribbons and laces. De 
Sanctis, in the Storia della Letteratura Italiana, says 
that naturalism in Italian poetry began with Marino’s 
Amorosa Visione, and ended with his Adone. ‘The two 
poems are similar in conception; love is the origin of 
life, the spirit of the universe, the crown of nature and 
art: everything begins with love, which encircles the 
world. The poem, De Sanétis adds, lacks all signific- 
ance, all seriousness, and all profundity; it has not a 
single dramatic situation and is devoid of all lyrical 
qualities. 

But, in spite of his affectations and his mediocre 
poetry, Marino had some knowledge of painting. 
He had long been in search of an artist capable of 
illustrating his wonderful poem, 4done, which was to 
be dedicated to Louis XIII and to rival Homer in 

28 


Early Years 


glory. He thought he had found the man in Nicolas 
Poussin. He sang his praises on all sides, and de- 
clared that France had, at last, produced an artist. 
He was not wrong. She had. 

Poussin and the Chevalier soon became fast friends, 
although intellectually they had nothing in common. 
Poussin took up his quarters in Marino’s house; the 
Chevalier would lie in bed and read his poem aloud, 
while Poussin made his drawings. This strange 
collaboration has puzzled all his biographers. There 
seemed nothing in the Chevalier’s fantastic, erotic 
personality to appeal to Poussin’s austere genius. 
According to Bouchitté, the explanation is to be 
found in their common enthusiasm for mythology. 
To a poet, as Poussin undoubtedly was, and a great 
lover of the nude, these stories opened up an entirely 
fresh field, and gave him the subjects for his most 
remarkable pictures. The 4doxe was published in 
1623. Poussin’s illustrations for it were in Cardinal 
Massimi’s library after Marino’s death, and some 
of them were engraved by Swanwelt; but no one 
knows what has become of them. 

But the friendship brought Poussin more material 
benefits. Through Marino’s valuable introductions 
he could at last put by a little money; his friend 
returned to Italy in 1623, and Poussin was able to 
follow twelve months later. He was evidently anxious 


29 


Nicolas Poussin 


to avoid a repetition of his former experiences; and if 
he remained behind, it was only to have a few écus 1n 
reserve before embarking on his journey. 

Among the pictures that he painted before he left 
was one commissioned by Archbishop Gondi, a 
“Death of the Virgin,” and a “ Saint Mary the 
Egyptian in the Desert ”’ for a chapel of Notre Dame. 
He is also supposed to have made a journey to Blois, 
at this period, to have done some work for the 
Capuchin monks there, and to have decorated a 
pavilion belonging to the Comte de Givernay; traces 
of this remained in the eighteenth century, but 
have now completely disappeared. Back again in 
Paris, he painted a few portraits, to make a little 
extra money—portrait painting was always distasteful 
to him—and by the spring of 1624 he was able to set 
out for Rome, and with his arrival there his real 
artistic career may be said to have begun. 


30 


uUnDAT 


(of «d 


(AqIaueYyD 


SLNHOONNI AHL 


avf 07) 


‘urnasn fy) 


dO AYXOVSSVIN AHL 


4 


010dg 


Chapter Two: Establishment in 


Rome 


a EDRETE un giovane chi a una furia di 
diavolo’’; with these words Marino recom- 
mended Nicolas Poussin to the Cardinal 

_ Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, a 

prelate of considerable culture who was, at the 
moment, building himself a magnificent palace on the 
Quirinal. 

The political situation was, unfortunately, compli- 
cated; negotiations with Richelieu had reached a 
delicate Stage, and these high matters occupied the 
Cardinal too much for him to show any interest in 
Marino’s protégé. And, as ill-luck would have it, 
soon after Poussin’s arrival, the Chevalier fell ill, and 
returned to Naples, where he was born, and where he 
died in the following year. Poussin lost not only a 
most valuable friend, but a man who might have been 
of the greatest service to him in Rome. 

It seemed at first as though solitude and poverty 
were to be his lot in Italy as they had been in France. 
However, he had, to console him, all the great works of 
Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and Bellini, and what 
remained of Greek and Roman art. He threw him- 
self heart and soul into the study of these, taking no 

31 C 


Nicolas Poussin 


account of fétes or holidays. With the young sculptor 
Frangois Duquesnoy, he spent his time in front of the 
Raphaels in the Vatican, the Titians and Giorgiones 
in the Borghese, and in excursions to the different 
villas outside Rome. When Duquesnoy copied, in 
bas-relief, Titian’s famous “ Children playing,” 
Poussin worked by his side, and learnt how to model 
in wax, thus gaining a more perfect knowledge of the 
human form. This picture had a great influence on 
him and directly inspired “‘ The Concert”’ of the 
Louvre, and ‘‘ The Seven Children” of the Spada 
Palace in Rome. 

Poussin’s cherubs, whether they represent cupids, 
angels, or mere ordinary children, as in “ The 
Triumph of David,” always play an important part 
in the secondary interest of his pictures. The 
pleasure he took in painting them is evident. He 
dwells with delight on the colour and the modelling 
of their plump little bodies, which have none of the 
insipid prettiness of Boucher and the eighteenth- 
century school; Poussin revelled in these little nudes 
and loved painting their curly hair, their moist parted 
lips as they dance along, their heads tipped back, in 
some Bacchanalian procession, or hover above a 
“ Flight into Egypt” or a “ Triumph of Flora.” 

But at the time we speak of, grimmer subjects often 
occupied him. A Roman surgeon placed skeletons 


32 


ee Bcd 


(Aray]eyy [euorjeN) 


SNHOOVEA AO NOILVONAGA AHL 
A1a]J0H) [ouot 


‘010d 


Establishment in Rome 


and dead bodies at his disposal, and these he disseéted 
and studied. He worked at geometry, perspective, 
and optics. He pored over Albert Diirer’s Treatise 
on the proportions of the human body; at night he read 
Ovid, Virgil, who enchanted him, and the Légende 
Dorée of Jacques Voragine. He was familiar with 
Tasso and all the fables of Greek mythology. He 
read the Lives of the Saints, and made a special study 
of the Bible, from which he took so many of his 
themes. In short, he was an indefatigable reader. In 
the portrait of himself, now in the Louvre, that he 
painted for his friend Chantelou, we can see the red, 
tired eyes of the midnight student. 

All this time he was struggling against poverty and 
bad health, and his resources were getting low. At 
one moment he had been obliged to sell to a dealer 
two battle-pieces crowded with figures for seven écus, 
and a prophet for eight! The battle-pieces were at 
one time in the possession of the Duc de Noailles, 
French Ambassador in Rome, but they disappeared, 
and no one knows what has become of them. Per- 
haps, some day, they will be discovered, hidden away 
in an obscure country house, as was the case with the 
‘Death of Phocion,”’ recently found in Jersey, and 
bought by “‘ Les Amis du Louvre.” 

Poussin met many people at Cardinal Barberini’s 
receptions; most of them were mere fortune-hunters 


33 


Nicolas Poussin 


and parasites, but there was one man with whom he 
found himself immediately in sympathy; this was the 
Commendatore Cassiano del Pozzo. He was the 
Cardinal’s secretary; a man of great culture, an 
admirer of the antique and a famous connoisseur and 
art collector. He became one of Poussin’s best 
friends and patrons, and a large portion of the pub- 
lished Correspondance is addressed to him. 

The first letter, undated, but generally supposed 
to belong to this period of early struggle in Rome, is 
one in which Poussin implores Pozzo’s assistance. 
“Tam in very great need,” he writes (avendone di 
bisogno tanto) *“‘ as most of the time I am incapacitated 
and have no other means of subsistence than the 
labour of my hands.” He goes on to say that he has 
drawn the elephant which his “* Signor [lustrissimo ”’ 
asked for, and which he is presenting to him. “Iam 
thinking about the other drawings, and I shall soon 
finish some of them.”” Pozzo showed himself a real 
friend, for in reply he promptly sent Poussin forty 
écus. With the exception of this letter, and a frag- 
ment of one, also undated, written to Jacques Stella, 
the painter, there are no others till Poussin was forty- 
five, and had received the invitation from Louis 
XIII to go to France. We may as well say at once 
that his letters possess no especial literary value; 
their principal interest lies in their naive com- 


an 


Establishment in Rome 


ments on his life, but the style is rather stiff and 
formal. 

For the last two hundred years, before Poussin 
went to study there in 1624, Rome had been the 
centre to which men of learning flocked from all parts 
of Europe. They came to ransack the libraries, to 
search for antiquities, to examine the monuments, 
and to have their books printed in the magnificent 
type of the Pontifical Press. Simon Vouet, the most 
celebrated French painter of the day, had settled 
there in the early years of the century, and had, in 
1624, been appointed head of the Academy of Saint 
Luke. Claude Gellée was a student, and lodged in 
the same street as Poussin, the via Paulina, now 
known as the via del Babuino. 

There were two distiné and rival schools of paint- 
ing; the one continued the traditions that had been 
handed down by Annibale Carracciand Michelangelo 
Caravaggio, who had both been dead some fifteen 
years; the other, at the head of which wete Guido 
Reni and Albano Lanfranc, kept up the academic 
traditions. Both schools had innumerable adherents 
—painters of religious pictures without religion and 
improvisors of slap-dash ceiling mythologies. At 
this time, strange as it may seem now, Guido Reni had 
the greatest following of any painter in Europe. The 
Bolognese school, long out of favour, was then held in 


<3) 


Nicolas Poussin 
high esteem. Caravaggio had tried to stay the tide 


of rapid decadence in Italian art, but his realism was 
only disguised romanticism. His coarse and facile 
handling only distorted nature. He was a good 
painter, but a bad teacher, and lacked sincerity, as was 
indeed the case with all the artists at that time. 
Artistically and morally Rome was a hotbed of 
corruption, but Poussin pursued his labours unruffled 
and unmoved—a fact that seemed strange to many of 
his biographers. ‘The serenity of his mind, however, 
his unswerving devotion to the antique, and his 
hatred of all pretence, enabled him to continue his 
studies with complete indifference to his surround- 
ings. He could, without effort, steep his thoughts in 
the past, in which, rather than in the present, he 
might almost be said to have lived. He was well 
aware of the lack of earnestness, the superficiality, 
the affectations of most of the Italian painters of his 
day. ‘Their facility offended him less than what he 
considered the immorality of their scamping, fa- 
presto, methods. He disliked Caravaggio more for 
his melodramatic qualities, which were particularly 
distasteful to him, than for the crude realism of his 
figures. The only living Italian artist from whom he 
condescended to learn was Zampier1 Domenichino. 
An interesting story is told of the meeting of the 
twomen. When all the students in Rome were flock- 


36 


(98 “df a0nf 0) 


(a1Ano'y) ‘Iapowg Jeurpreg 10} ofg1 ur paiuieg 


VuaoOTA AO HdWOAIML AHL 


Establishment in Rome 

ing to San Gregorio on the Coelian to copy ‘“ The 
Martyrdom of Saint Andrew,” by the then popular 
Guido Reni, the chapel adjoining, where Domeni- 
chino’s painting hung, was deserted save for one 
student who recognized the superiority of the work, 
and set up his easel in front of it. This student was 
Nicolas Poussin. He drew the attention of other 
painters to the neglected picture. The story runs 
that the artist came himself to the chapel to see what 
manner of man it was who preferred his work to that 
of the popular idol. He entered into conversation 
with the student; asa result, Poussin joined Domeni- 
chino’s school, where greater attention was given to 
drawing and facial expression, which were both very 
much neglected in the schools of the other followers 
of the Bolognese. Some discredit this story, and 
maintain that Poussin first met Domenichino at 
Cardinal Barberini’s, and that the sympathy felt by 
Poussin for Domenichino’s many misfortunes was 
the cause of the friendship that sprang up between 
them. In any event, this cannot have lasted very 
long, for in 1629 Domenichino left for Naples, where 
soon after he met with his tragic death. 

At about this time, through Pozzo’s influence, 
Cardinal Barberini commissioned Poussin to paint 
“The Death of Germanicus.”” The picture met with 
immediate success. It was praised on all sides. The 


oy 


Nicolas Poussin 


Cardinal was so delighted with it that he at once gave 
an order for another picture, ‘“‘ The Taking of Jeru- 
salem by Titus,” now in Vienna. When it was 
finished, the Cardinal gave it to Prince Eschenberg, 
the Austrian Ambassador, to whom he wished to 
offer a present of value, but before parting with it, 
he was careful to get the artist to paint him a replica. 
Poussin also received a commission for a picture to be 
executed in mosaic, for Saint Peter’s; this resulted in 
the wonderful “* Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus,” now 
in the Vatican. He also finished ‘‘ The Philistines 
smitten with the Plague,” which, according to Bellori, 
was inspired by Raphael’s great work. A replica of 
this picture, called ‘‘’The Plague at Ashdod,” hangs 
in the National Gallery, but in this second version 
some parts have been repainted, and it is very inferior 
to the one in the Louvre. Arséne Alexandre, in an 
article on the “‘ Pantomime of Expression,’’ makes 
especial reference to an incident in the conception, 
pointing out that Poussin never recoiled from any 
real and actual gesture, however commonplace, when 
he wished to give value to a dramatic incident. Here 
he shows us the people searching in the streets for the 
dead bodies of their relatives, and actually holding 
their noses! And yet this gesture, far from appearing 
trivial or ridiculous, merely adds to the gruesomeness 
of the scene. Again, in “The Massacre of the 


38 


Establishment in Rome 


Innocents,”’ at Chantilly, the horror of the subjeCt— 
a horror so haunting that the picture once seen can 
never be forgotten—the soldier has his foot planted 
firmly on the child’s throat, while the agonized 
mother, her face distorted with grief, in vain tries to 
prevent the appalling butchery. The effeét is in- 
creased by the terror and despair of a woman in the 
background, who turns away, unable to bear the 
heartrending scene. This picture is a striking 
example of Poussin’s power of rendering emotion 
through facial expression; as a rule, he preferred to 
convey it through the attitudes of his figures, as in the 
grief-stricken women in “‘ The Death of Germanicus’”’ 
or the reverent pose of the worshippers in the “* Ador- 
ation of the Magi ”’ in the Dresden Gallery. But no 
matter how bold his gestures, Poussin never sets out 
deliberately to startle, as is the case with so many of 
our modern painters; to him the rendering was 
spontaneous, as it were unconscious, and derived 
from what Croce would call his “* intuitive concept ”’ 
of the subject. 

During the first years of his stay in Rome, Poussin 
still wore the French costume, but one day, when 
there was trouble between France and Italy, he and 
some of his friends were set upon in the streets by a 
party of the papal soldiers. The Frenchmen defended 


themselves as well as they could and got away safely, 


39 


Nicolas Poussin 


but Poussin very narrowly escaped losing the use of 
one of his hands. From that time onwards he thought 
it more prudent to dress like the Italians. 

Before he came to Rome he had formed a friend- 
ship with a family in Lyons named Dughet, who gave 
him a letter of introduction to relatives of theirs in 
Rome of the same name. They were humble folk, 
the father being cook to a senator, but when Poussin 
fell ill the entire family, including the mother and 
five children, took him in their charge and nursed 
him with the greatest devotion. On his recovery, 
moved either by gratitude or a more tender feeling, 
he asked for the hand of the daughter, Anne-Marie. 
All we know of her is that she was a simple sweet- 
natured girl, who was ready to share a life of hard 
work and solitude. Poussin made a bust of her in 
terra-cotta which has, unfortunately, disappeared; 
but it is interesting to note that Horace Walpole 
mentions having bought it at Mariette’s sale in 1775. 

Poussin and Anne-Marie were married on August 
gth, 1630, at the Church of San Lorenzo-in-Lucina, 
and there is every reason to suppose that they lived 
happily together. Poussin makes no special mention 
of his wife in his correspondence, but when she 
died in 1664, his letters to Chantelou expressed the 
deepest sorrow. 


One of his wife’s brothers, Gaspar Dughet, 
40 


(ob *d anf 07) 


(a1Ano’7) 


ANAOS NVIIVNVHOOVE 
unvAg *O10Ud 


Establishment in Rome 


became his ardent disciple; another, Jean Dughet, 
engraved several of his pictures. Until quite recent 
years Gaspar Dughet was known as Gaspar Poussin, 
and his pictures were catalogued under that name in 
most galleries. His landscapes are in the chara¢teristic 
classic style of the period, and all show how greatly 
he was under the influence of his brother-in-law. 
The smaller canvas by him in the National Gallery, an 
evening effect, representing a flock of sheep in a 
sunken forest road, proves that Dughet worked more 
closely from nature than most painters of his time. 

Shortly after his marriage Poussin bought a small 
house in the via del Babuino, close to the Pincian, and, 
with the exception of the two years he spent in France, 
remained there until his death. His life was not one 
of movement or adventure; he lived for his work. 
His painstaking methods entailed a vast amount of 
study and reading. When he had to paint an historical 
picture he was not content to do it out of his head; he 
would reconstruct the period in all its details, with the 
keenest sense of classification rare in his day. This 
is one of the reasons why some French critics hold 
that the temper of his mind resembled that of the men 
of the Renaissance, and was akin to Leonardo’s. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century 
French and Italian artists were not given to a very 
realistic Study of nature. It was an age of exaggera- 


4lI 


Nicolas Poussin 


tion and sentimentality; in literature there were Les 
Précieuses and the novels of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. 
In painting Simon Vouet, in a sense, carried on 
the traditions of the Fontainebleau school; but his 
reputation has scarcely travelled beyond his own 
country. Several of his pictures hang in the Louvre; 
they show that he was a skilful painter but no great 
draughtsman, and he never broke from the conven- 
tions and mannerisms of his time. 

Poussin, classic and traditional as he now appears, 
brought an entirely new and individual note into 
French art. His passionate study of the old Roman 
bas-reliefs and Greek traditions helped him to create 
an original and personal style, which became the 
foundation of the modern French school. He has 
been called Italian, but this is not quite correct. He 
represents all that is best in French art grafted on to 
the Italian. His colour, which has been criticized, 
became essentially and characteristically French, as 
soon as he had freed himself from the Venetian 
influence—for the French are not brilliant colourists 
in the usual sense, with the one exception Eugéne 
Delacroix. ‘Their colour is not rich or intense; it is 
delicate, soft, with subtle combinations and _har- 
monies—very like the tones of a Normandy land- 
scape in spring. ‘There are more ways than one of 
achieving beautiful effects of colour. With Poussin, 


42 


Establishment in Rome 


it is as if the artist had dipped his brush in ‘‘ some 
serenest and Star-shining twilight’; its tone re- 
sembles, and most likely inspired, the decorations of 
Puvis de Chavannes, Corot’s landscapes, and Vuil- 
lard’s interiors. He revels in subtle harmonies and 
gradations of greys, greens, and blues, with here and 
there a note of intensity to give value to the rest. 

In 1635, when the famous mosaic representing 
Egyptian ceremonies was discovered, Poussin was 
one of the first to examine and make drawings of it, 
and would invariably refer to it whenever he had to 
paint an Egyptian scene. He copied the famous 
Greek fresco, “ Marriage,’”’ which had been dis- 
covered in the Villa Aldobrandini some fifteen years 
before. Chateaubriand mentions this copy in his 
Voyages d’Italie, and declares it to be as fine a work 
as the original. Many of Poussin’s compositions 
reveal the influence of this Greek fresco; its inspira- 
tion is shown in his method of grouping his figures in 
one plane in the foreground, a scheme that he carried 
to very great perfection. It was owing to his constant 
desire to recapture the spirit of the antique that he 
worked, with the assistance of Duquesnoy, the sculp- 
tor, at a scale of proportions of the human figure, 
based on the best known statues, such as the Antinéus 
and the Liaocoon. 


During the first years of his stay in Rome, Poussin 
+5 


Nicolas Poussin 


was clearly under the influence of the masters of the 
Renaissance. Some of his earlier canvases might 
easily be mistaken for Titians or Giorgiones, but, 
gradually, he broke away from this richly coloured 
and more sensuous manner to create the style which 
he has made so entirely his own. In “ The Nursing 
of Bacchus ” in the National Gallery, he had not yet 
freed himself; this work has all the glowing light and 
shade, all the richness of colour of the Venetians. 
This is the picture so much admired by Hazlitt, who 
wrote “ the infant Bacchus seems as if he would drink 
a vintage—he drinks with his mouth, his hands, his 
belly, and his whole body.” ‘To the same period 
belongs “‘ The Nursing of Jupiter by the goat 
Amalthaea,” in the Dulwich Gallery. The influence 
of the antique is seen in the grace and movement of 
the two Nymphs, the Source and the Huntress; and 
the trees and distant hills show what romance and 
charm he was able to put into his landscape back- 
grounds. Even Ruskin, so antagonistic to everything 
that Poussin did, was bound to admit of his landscapes 
that ‘though limited in material, they are incom- 
parably abler than Claude’s.”’ There is another ver- 
sion of this subject, “The Nourishment of Jupiter,” 
quite different in composition, but almost as remark- 
able in treatment, in Berlin. All three pi€tures were 
painted between 1633 and 1636. 


44 


THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 
Painted in 1633. (Dresden Gallery) 


(to face p. 44) 


6 rahe gm <= afta ae? si ty 7: 


oa { 


Poa 
4 
xs . 
male 
. 1 
> - . 
1 * 
= . 
j 
- 


Establishment in Rome 


“The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine,” in 
Sir Herbert Cook’s collection at Richmond, and 
‘* Apollo and the Poet,” a fairly recent acquisition to 
the Louvre from the Hope colle€tion, both painted 
about this time, rank very high in the long list of 
masterpieces that date from before 1640. The 
‘“ Apollo ”’ is as fine as any of the Venetians, and the 
colour so fresh that the picture might have been 
painted yesterday. ‘This cannot be said of all the 
Poussins in the Louvre. It 1s disappointing to find 
that some of the biblical pictures in Paris have lost 
a great deal of their colour and brilliance; either from 
over-varnishing, or from the working up, in the 
course of years, of the under-paint used as a prepara- 
tion. Renoir used to say that painters would do well 
to remember that “ La peinture ne se fait pas seule- 
ment avec les éléments, couleurs et dessins, mais 
aussi avec l’élément temps.” He had noticed, when 
travelling in Spain, that the Poussins in the Prado 
were in far better condition than those in the Louvre, 
and he attributed this to the dryness of the climate. 

Poussin had, at last, become famous in Italy, 
though in his own country he was still unknown. 
‘The Passage of the Red Sea,” “‘ The Worship of 
the Golden Calf,’ and the first series of the Seven 
Sacraments, commissioned by Pozzo, had estab- 
lished his reputation in Rome as one of the greatest of 


45 


Nicolas Poussin 


living artists. And, gradually, his fame spread to 
France. Travellers who had seen his work spoke of it 
ecstatically. ‘Two painters, Nicolas Guillaume, known 
as La Fleur, and Jacques Stella, both of them 
peinires du roi, and therefore possessing some in- 
fluence, had brought back pictures with them; 
Jacques Stella the “* Armida carrying off Rinaldo,” 
now in Berlin, and La Fleur the “ Pan and Syrinx ” of 
the Dresden Gallery. These they showed to many 
people in Paris, including the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, 
Richelieu’s niece; she was so impressed that she gave 
Poussin a commission, which resulted in his painting 
for her ‘‘ ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women ’’—believed 
to be the one now in the Louvre. Degas made a copy 
of this picture, and it was in his studio at the time of 
his death. Sir Herbert Cook has another version at 
Richmond, but slightly different in composition. 
Richelieu commissioned four Bacchanalian scenes 
and a “‘ Triumph of Neptune.” ‘T'wo of these are in 
our National Gallery, and we can still admire the 
riotous “ Festival’ and marvel at the exquisite poise 
of the nymph in the “ Bacchanalian Dance,” as she 
turns to squeeze the grape juice into the bowl held up 
by the two beautifully painted puzti. 


4.6 


(9b +A a9nf 


(AraqTeQ) uapsaiq”) *obgr as0jaq pajuieg 
SdIdND HLIM SONAA ONIdAATS 
unvIg "0104 


f 
~ 
‘ 
« 
i 
a 


ee et 


- 7 - 

_ : iz el A 

a 7 o F, 2 me Pe ys hye! : nj aie 

miles Ae et eed ape ee ote ‘iy + i ~~ ae ale marcia aes | gle tame wae haere at AE la ee a 
A : 


Chapter Three: “Premier 
peintre du Roi” 
[: 1639 Louis XIII had written to Poussin that 


he is regarded as “‘ one of the most famous of our 

painters in Italy,” and that ‘“‘ We [King Louis] 
being desirous of following the example set by our 
predecessors who gathered around them, for the de- 
coration of their royal palaces, all who excelled in 
the arts . . . write you this letter to tell you that we 
have chosen and retain you for one of our ‘ Painters 
in ordinary.’”’ De Noyers, the Surintendant des 
Batiments, sends a letter of his own urging the 
acceptance of this offer, and quaintly adds: “* comme 
j’ay un amour tout particulier, pour la peinture, je fis 
desseing de la caresser comme une maitresse bien 
aimée, et de lui doner les primices de mes soings.”’ 
It may be remarked here that, these protestations 
notwithstanding, Noyers was accused of having 
destroyed, from conscientious motives, the famous 
“Leda” of Michelangelo, which was under his 
charge at the palace of Fontainebleau! 

Poussin, however, refused these flattering offers. 
He was happy in his house by the Pincian, leading 
the life that suited him best and devoting all his time 
to the work that he cared for more than anything 


47 D 


Nicolas Poussin 


in the world. But in the course of the next year 
Noyers sent his cousin Paul-Fréart de Chantelou to 
Rome, with a mission to persuade French painters 
and sculptors to come to France to decorate the 
royal palaces. Roland de Chantelou, Paul-Fréart’s 
brother, had already met Poussin on a previous visit; 
the two, inspired by a common love of the antique, 
had wandered together through the city admiring its 
treasures. We do not know whether Roland accom- 
panied Paul-Fréart on this occasion, but he and 
Poussin had kept up a correspondence after Roland’s 
return to France, and he would naturally have sug- 
gested to his brother to go first of all to Poussin. 
Paul-Fréart was much struck by the quality and 
power of ‘‘ The Death of Germanicus ” and “‘ The 
Worship of the Golden Calf,” and other pi€tures 
which had made Poussin so famous in Italy, and may 
be presumed to have done all he could to persuade 
him to accept Noyers’ offer. 

But Poussin remained obdurate till a second, and 
very pressing invitation begging him to go, came 
from the painter, Le Maire, who had been for some 
time installed in Paris. This letter appears to have 
had an effect and Poussin changed his mind. He 
writes to Chantelou not to think he had not been 
in the greatest doubts as to what he should do, but 
that having lived happily for fifteen years in this 


48 


‘¢ Premier peintre ai ROW 


country, having married and hoping to die here, he 
had decided to follow the Italian saying, chi Sta bene 
non st muove. However, he had now decided to 
accept the invitation, “‘ principally,” he adds, ‘ be- 
cause in that way I shall be better able to serve you 
to whom I am so deeply indebted.” 

Noyers settled the terms of the agreement: 
Poussin was to receive one thousand écus a year and 
a commodious lodging in whichever of the royal 
palaces that he preferred, the Louvre or Fontaine- 
bleau. He was to paint neither ceilings nor vaults 
and, in accordance with his own desire, to be bound 
for five years only; but Noyers hoped that “ having 
once breathed his native air, he would be only too 
happy to remain.” 

When the de Chantelous were in Rome they had 
various casts and bas-reliefs made under Poussin’s 
directions. These were now all carefully packed and 
sent to Paris, to be used in the decoration of the 
palaces. The preparations were completed by 28th 
Otober, and Poussin was ready to start. He was 
full of regrets. He sadly recommended his wife and 
his household to the care of his friends Cassiano and 
Antonio del Pozzo; and the little party, consisting 
of Poussin, his brother-in-law Gaspar Dughet, and 
three other French artists (Jean Mosnier, Jean 
Dominique, and Nicolas de la Faye), embarked at 


49 


Nicolas Poussin 


Civita-Vecchia, in one of the galleys passing north, 
on the way to Genoa. 

The journey took over two months, but it is prob- 
able that they stopped at some of the towns on the 
route. They reached Paris in December, and 
Poussin was cordially welcomed by Noyers, who taét- 
fully refrained from any allusion to the sculptor 
Duquesnoy, Poussin’s friend, who had, much to 
Noyers’ indignation, firmly refused to leave Rome. 
Shortly after his arrival, Poussin sent an interesting 
letter to Pozzo telling him of his having reached 
Fontainebleau, where he was welcomed by a “ gentil- 
uomo’’ who had orders from Noyers to do him 
every honour; and that after being féted for three 
days, he was taken by carriage to Paris. He describes 
his lodging there as “‘a little palace in the middle of 
the Tuileries.... There is a beautiful large garden 
full of fruit trees and various flowers, with lawns, 
three fountains, and a fine courtyard with more fruit 
trees; there are open views on all sides and in summer 
I believe it must be a paradise.’”’ This house was 
known as the Pavillon de la Cloche; it disappeared in 
1664, when it was swallowed up in Le Notre’s vast 
plans for the Tuileries Gardens. 

On Poussin’s arrival he found the house hand- 
somely furnished (‘‘ mobilato nobilmente ”’), with all 
provisions and necessaries, including even wood and 


50 


yray 


E. C 


4 
(4 


Willian 


Photo. 


THE TRIUMPH OF DAVID 


(Dulwich Gallery) 


(to face p. 50) 


oe ke ee ae a 


‘¢ Premier peintre du Ro1”’ 


‘“a cask of good old wine two years old.” For 
three days he and his friends were the King’s guests. 
He was then taken to see his “‘ Eminentissimo,”’ Car- 
dinal Richelieu, who greeted him very cordially and 
seemed delighted to make his acquaintance. Noyers 
allowed him a further three days’ rest and then took 
him to Saint-Germain to be presented to Louis XIII. 
But as the King was not well he had to wait till the 
following day. The ceremony was duly performed 
by the all-powerful Cing-Mars. ‘‘ Louis, like a 
beneficent and humane Prince,’’ Poussin wrote, 
‘* deigned to be very amiable, and spent half an hour 
talking to me and asking me many things. Then, 
turning to his courtiers, he said: * Voila Vouet bien 
attrapé.’ [Simon Vouet had been the court painter 
for fourteen or fifteen years.] The King ordered 
me to paint two large pictures for his chapels of 
Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain.” On returning 
to Paris he found that Louis had sent him a beautiful 
purse in turquoise velvet, containing two thousand 
écus in the new coinage. 

These first impressions were very agreeable. He 
was féted on all sides. He visited the churches and 
houses where there were any pictures to be seen, and 
in this way got to know all the rich amateurs, such 
as Mauray, Passard, and Cérisier, for whom he 
worked in later years. He was much impressed by 


fi 


Nicolas Poussin 


the work of a young man, Lebrun, whose “‘ Ravisse- 
ment de Proserpine” he saw at the Hotel de Riche- 
lieu, and predicted a great future for him. The 
royal carriages were sent for Poussin when he visited 
the King, who would graciously receive him at the 
door of his apartment. 

He was placed at the head of all the artists who 
were at work on the decoration of the palaces. No 
one was permitted to do anything without first sub- 
mitting the designs to him, and receiving his advice. 
It was unfortunate, however, that these artists’ plans 
for the Long Gallery of the Louvre, the main object 
in hand, had been completed before his arrival. At 
first he was able to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings; 
but as time went on this grew more and more 
difficult, and finally quite impossible. His position, 
which had been so pleasant at the start, soon became 
very difficult and almost intolerable. Many of the 
artists under him were working at schemes which he 
cordially disliked and was unable to sanction. ‘This 
very soon led to general dissatisfaction, with conse- 
quent jealousy and bitterness. 

Noyers worked him very hard, and gave him 
more to do than he could possibly manage. The 
Imprimerie Royale had just been established; he was 
set to design frontispieces for Horace, Virgil, and the 
Bible. At the same time he was asked to make 


§2 


‘¢ Premier peintre du Roi” 


drawings for the royal tapestries after the manner of 
the Raphael cartoons; to revise the plans for the 
decoration of the Long Gallery of the Louvre, and 
to paint a picture for the Congregation of Saint Louis! 
He wrote in despair to Chantelou: “‘ Je n’ay qu’une 
main et une débile teste, et ne peux étre secondé 
de personne ni soulagé.” The drawings for the 
tapestries alone, he declared, were quite enough to 
keep him fully occupied. He apologizes for speaking 
so freely, and characteristically adds, ‘‘ my nature 
constrains me to do things in an orderly manner, 
avoiding confusion, which is as averse and contrary to 
me as light to the deepest obscurity.” 

He complains still more bitterly to Pozzo, that 
his time is being split up and wasted over a number 
of different and conflicting jobs; he finds the people 
at the court entirely without taste or real under- 
Standing of art. He is glad that his friend has refused 
to allow him to make replicas for Chantelou of the 
Seven Sacraments that he had painted in Rome for 
Pozzo. He is quite ready to start on new sub- 
jects, he writes, but not to repeat those that he has 
already done. Later on, however, he changed his 
mind, and consented to paint another series. ‘This 
proved even better than the first, his talent having 
developed and matured in the interval. This second 
series, painted for Chantelou, subsequently be- 


oC 


Nicolas Poussin 


longed to the Duke of Orleans, and is now in the 
Bridgewater House collection. The first, Pozzo’s, 
was bought in Rome by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the 
Duke of Rutland, and Walpole mentions having seen 
it when he went up to London in 1786. 

Pozzo was urging Poussin to make copies for 
him of two Raphaels, “‘ La Belle Jardiniére”’ and a 
‘ Holy Family,” which he had admired when on his 
visit to France with Cardinal Barberini. He was 
also asking Poussin to use his influence at Court in 
the matter of the abbaye de Cavour in Piémont, of 
which he was trying to get possession, and which 
Richelieu had promised to the Abbé Mondin, his 
agent and protégé. Poussin did not like to refuse ; 
he feels under an obligation to Pozzo, who is looking 
after his wife and attending to his affairs in Rome. 
The inhabitants of his native village were also trying 
to profit by his position at Court, for in a letter to 
Chantelou we find this sentence: “ J’ai receu la 
lettre de faveur pour les habitants de Villers.” He 
evidently did his best to satisfy everyone. 

Meanwhile the situation was becoming more and 
more difficult. Noyers commissions him to paint 
“The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier and Saint 
Ignatius ”’ for the high altar of the Jesuits’ Church; 
and he is obliged to plunge into the study of their 
dreary lives. All through the summer he has to work 


54 


‘“¢ Premier peintre du Roi” 
at “ The Last Supper ”’ for the chapel of Saint-Ger- 


main. Richelieu begs him to advise on the plans for 
the vaulting of the staircase of his palace; Noyers is 
anxious to have his opinion on the architeét’s de- 
signs for his house in the rue Saint-Honoré. When 
he is invited to Dangu or Chantilly, he refuses firmly, 
giving as a pretext his bad health and sedentary 
habits. He will remain in Paris and touch up “ The 
Last Supper,” painted for the King, which had 
suffered from the damp. ‘‘ These,’’ he writes, ‘‘ are 
my walks, my pleasures, my relaxations, and my 
delectations; I must be content to get a little fresh 
air by taking a few days in the environs of 
Paris.” 

He disliked the archite¢t Lemercier’s plans for the 
Long Gallery of the Louvre; these comprised a 
decoration with alternate medallions of landscapes of 
French towns by Fouquiéres and Poussin’s own 
designs for the Life of Hercules! Meanwhile, as 
there are no workmen, and only one mediocre 
sculptor, available for all the decorations on hand, he 
decides to wait till others can be procured, goes on 
with “ ‘The Last Supper,” and finishes ‘‘ The Burning 
Bush ”’ for Richelieu. 

‘““] sigh and blush,” he writes despondently to 
Pozzo, ‘“‘ and am troubled merely at the thought of 
finding myself a useless servant; it is true that this 


55 


Nicolas Poussin 


yoke that I have placed about my neck does not pre- 
vent me from acquitting myself of my debt and 
affection to you, but I hope soon to be free of it... . 
Without a single break, I have to work first at one 
thing and then at another.’ Before Noyers left 
Paris, he suggested that Poussin should paint a 
Madonna after his own heart, which should be spoken 
of as “‘ Poussin’s Madonna,”’ just as they spoke of 
Raphael’s. But, when Poussin went to see the chapel 
and found how badly it was lighted, he thought it 
useless to make the attempt, realizing at the same 
time that there were no definite plans behind all these 
different suggestions of Noyers’. 

When he had finished the commissions for Riche- 
lieu and the King, he wrote to Pozzo that his work 
had been very well received. The King and Queen 
assured him that this piCture for their chapel gave 
them as much pleasure as the sight of their children. 
Richelieu was so delighted that he complimented him 
in the presence of “* Monseigneur Mazarin.” 

Meanwhile at the Louvre things were not going 
at all well. There Poussin’s endeavours to get on 
with the work were hampered at every turn by the 
intrigues and jealousies of the other artists. But he 
bore everything with patience until, in March 1642, 
he received an insulting letter from Noyers, con- 
taining the remark that ‘‘ Le génie du Poussin veut 


56 


‘¢ Premier peintre du Roi” 


agir si librement que je ne veux pas seulement lui 
indiquer ce que le Roi désire du sien.” 

This at first puzzled him; he could not understand 
what he had done to displease the Minister. At last, 
all became clear. Simon Vouet had never forgiven 
Poussin for supplanting him; nor could Lemercier 
feel grateful to the man who had proved to Richelieu 
and Noyers that his reputation as an architeét was 
quite undeserved, and his plans for the Louvre use- 
less. Fouquiéres, too, the landscape painter, owed it 
to Poussin that he had lost his chance of a long and 
comfortable job. All these had for some consider- 
able time been secretly planning vengeance. At last, 
they took courage and approached Noyers, who was 
weak enough to listen to and be influenced by them. 
He had no real knowledge of art, and was unable to 
perceive that their criticisms were solely inspired by 
envy and malice. Poussin was no diplomat; his 
nature was too honest and straightforward to cope 
with these intriguers and place-seekers, whom he had 
in all innocence turned against him. 

They attacked him for the simplicity of his designs 
for the Long Gallery, which, they declared, were so 
void of ornament and richness as to be more fitted for 
the house of a bourgeois than for a royal palace. 
Theysneered at the Christ inthe “ LastSupper,” whom 
they described as Olympian; they went in a body to 


57 


Nicolas Poussin 


the church of the Jesuits, and said that the Christ in 
Poussin’s picture there was more like a “ Jupiter 
tonnant ”’ than a God of Mercy. Nota single work 
of his escaped their venom; they even incited against 
him the artisans in the Louvre and the printers at the 
Imprimerie Royale. ‘Two painters alone remained 
loyal: Sebastian Bourdon and the young and very 
gifted Le Sueur, who was so generously indignant at 
the way Poussin was being treated that, touched by 
his sympathy, Poussin arranged a meeting which 
resulted in a lasting friendship. Le Sueur became 
Poussin’s pupil while he remained in Paris, and 
continued to receive instructions afterwards by letter; 
and when his master returned to Rome, Le Sueur 
worked from his drawings. Poussin’s influence is 
strongly shown in all Le Sueur’s pictures. 

Poussin sent a most interesting reply to Noyers, 
defending himself against his enemies’ attacks. ‘“‘ All 
painters,” he writes, “ancient and modern, like 
Annibale Carracci and Domenichino, who lacked 
neither the art nor the science to enable their qualities 
to be judged, only became famous through their mis- 
fortunes, due to the intrigues of those who envied 
them.... I place myself among the Carraccis and 
the Domenichinos.”” He complains that Noyers 
should have listened to the calumnies of his enemies, 
since it was he, Noyers, who had provided the occa- 


58 


Photo. Braun 
BACCHANALIAN SCENE IN A WOOD 


Painted 1632-36, (Cassel Museum) 


(to face p. 58) 


‘¢ Premier peintre du Roi” 


sion for those calumnies, by himself removing the 
pictures of Poussin’s rivals and putting his in their 
place. He claims, therefore, that he was entitled to 
Noyers’ special protection, and blames him for his 
conduct. He gives his reasons for the modifications 
he has made, exposing minutely and with much 
technical detail the errors that had entered into the 
original scheme for the decoration of the Gallery. 
He adds that he had never intended, and for very 
good reasons, to make an elaborate decoration: that 
there were no craftsmen in Paris capable of such 
work, that the expense would have been enormous, 
and that the gallery, because of its great length, 
could never satisfactorily serve for anything but a 
passage. Further, that it would probably fall into the 
dilapidated condition in which he had found it 
since “‘ the negligence and the scanty love of beautiful 
things in our nation are so great that no sooner is a 
work finished than the people take no account of it, 
but, on the contrary, find pleasure in its destruction.” 

We are all familiar with this Long Gallery of the 
Louvre, which is now hung with pictures of the 
Spanish and Italian schools; it runs from the Salon 
Carré, parallel with the Seine, to the Place Carrousel, 
and there can be no doubt that Poussin was right. 
No satisfactory decoration could ever have been made 
in a gallery so disproportionately long and narrow. 


59 


Nicolas Poussin 


It was originally designed by Henry IV to serve as an 
easy means of communication between the Louvre 
and the Tuileries, at that time outside the walls of the 
city. It had only once been used before it was con- 
verted into the picture gallery of the Museum; that 
was on 2nd April, 1810, and then as a passage only, 
on the occasion of the triumphant procession of 
Napoleon and Marie-Louise through the assembled 
corps d’Etat and crowds of courtiers, from the Tuil- 
eries to the Salon Carré, where their civil marriage 
was celebrated. 

Though the whole scheme of decoration of the 
Louvre was changed and modified 1n accordance with 
Poussin’s advice, nothing remains of his a€tual work 
there but the fine series of drawings from the life of 
Hercules, which he sent from Rome from time to 
time, but which was never executed. They have all 
been engraved, and are to be seen in the Louvre, not 
far from the famous Long Gallery which they were 
destined to decorate. 

Poussin was now very impatient to return to Rome. 
He made up his mind to seize the first opportunity 
that presented itself. When he went to Fontainebleau 
he got leave from Noyers to fetch his wife, whose 
health was giving him some anxiety. He hurried on 
the work he had in hand. He finished the picture of 
“Time sheltering Truth from the attacks of Envy 

60 


°¢ Premier peintre du Rot” 


and Discord ”’ for Richelieu; one of the few alle- 
gorical pictures he painted, and supposed to express 
the indignation he felt against his calumniators. In 
another work, painted at the same time in an alle- 
gorical-satirical vein, he is supposed to have repre- 
sented Simon Vouet, Lemercier, and Fouquiéres, his 
chief detractors, as well as Noyers and Chantelou, 
and none too flatteringly; but the pi€ture has dis- 
appeared. 

He had a final interview with Louis XIII, who 
proposed to give him a pension if he would undertake 
to establish an Academy in Paris; academies were 
in the air at that time. The King never doubted 
that he would return. Noyers, always on the look 
out to get as much as he could out of Poussin, in- 
duced him to improve the designs for the projected 
Orangery of the Luxembourg, and to advise on the. 
plans for the chapel for his own chateau at Dangu. 
At last, towards the end of September, accompanied 
by his brother-in-law, Gaspar Dughet, Poussin was 
ready to set out on his journey. We can imagine 
with what joy he left the French court and all its 
ignorance, its intrigues, and its philistinism. He was 
back in Rome by sth November, 1642, having been 
exactly two years and four months in France. 


61 


Chapter Four: Return to Rome 


OUSSIN was only too pleased to be back 
Pie: in Rome. His house in the via Paulina 
(now 79 via del Babuino) was small but it was 
sufficient for his modest requirements. From the 
windows he looked on to the Pincian. His studio was 
not large, but in it (as is shown by the inventory of 
his property, which his heir sold some time after his 
death) were busts of Caligula, Augustus, the young 
Nero, Faustina, and Cleopatra, as also various bas- 
reliefs, small figures of Venus, Flora, a Bacchus, and 
several laughing Fauns. Poussin was now recognized 
as the most famous artist in Rome. But he was still 
peintre du roi, and his connection with the French 
court was causing him much anxiety. He had been 
instructed by Noyers, before leaving Paris, to have 
bronze casts made of works attributed to Phidias and 
Praxiteles, of the Farnese Hercules and the Dancers 
from the Marriage Feast in the Borghese Gardens; 
these were to decorate the entrance to the Louvre. 
Noyers’ secretary, Chantelou, was in Rome, assisting 
in this and various other undertakings. Subsequent 
events, however, interrupted these labours; and 
many of the casts were still in Poussin’s studio at the 
time of his death. 
He lived in constant dread of being recalled to 
62 


(zg *d anf 02) 


(Asategy yotminqg) ‘*gt-€fgt paqureg 
WALIdAl AO ONISYAN AHL 
Avis) *Y uviyji “0104 I 


Return to Rome 


Paris. Jacques Stella, the painter, was indiscreet 
enough to tell Noyers that Poussin had no inten- 
tion of returning; when taxed with this by Noyers, 
Poussin denied it. But it is clear that he was very 
anxious for something to happen that should free him 
from this obligation; and it must have been a relief 
when, in December 1643, the news reached Rome of 
the sudden death of Richelieu and of Mazarin’s 
succession. Five months later, in May, came a Still 
more Startling event: the death of Louis XIII. 
Richelieu’s disappearance had no immediate effect 
on Poussin. Noyers remained Secretary of State for 
War and Superintendent of Buildings. He wrote 
to Chantelou, who was still in Rome, that his plans 
were unaltered and that he still intended to carry out 
all his schemes of decoration. But Poussin did not 
know, though Chantelou probably did, that while the 
King was dying a desperate struggle for power was 
going on round his death-bed between Mazarin, 
Noyers, and Chavigny. Poussin imagined that he 
might be summoned at any moment to return to 
France and continue the work at the Louvre; his 
health being bad and the risks of travel considerable, 
he considered it prudent to make his will. With the 
exception of the bequest of a thousand écus to Gaspar 
Dughet, his brother-in-law, legacies to his nieces by 
marriage, and two thousand écus to the son of his 
63 E 


Nicolas Poussin 


friend and patron, Pozzo, he constituted his wife 
his sole heiress. ‘There is no mention whatever of 
any of his Normandy relatives in this first will. He 
was now completely Italianized, and all his interests 
were centred in Rome. 

Chantelou was stillin Italy; before he left he again 
urged Poussin to have copies made for him of the 
Seven Sacraments painted for Pozzo ; Poussin was 
reluctant, as he disliked the idea of his pictures being 
badly copied as much as he disliked making replicas 
himself ; what he finally did was to paint another 
series which is now in the possession of Lord Elles- 
mere and is generally considered to be the better of 
the two. 

Meanwhile, in the struggle that had been going on 
at the French court, Noyers had been beaten by 
Mazarin—and, after some bitter words from the 
King, had sent in his resignation. It was maliciously 
whispered among the courtiers that the permission 
he had so often sought, to retire to his chateau at 
Dangu, had at last been granted; but, asa fact, to the 
end of his life he deeply regretted his hasty decision. 

Louis died soon after ; but Noyers’ disgrace was 
attended with more consequences to Poussin than the 
King’s death. He received the news of the two events 
in a letter that Chantelou sent him from Turin. He 
was now freed from all obligations to go back to 

64. 


(t9 *d avf 02) 


(arano’T) *gf-gfgr pajuieg 
OTTOdV AO NOILVUIdMSNI FHL 


Return to Rome 


France. He felt certain that Noyers would never 
again come into power, and begged Chantelou to 
remind the ex-Minister that, beyond his yearly allow- 
ance, he had received no payment for his work. It 
was not until six years later that the French Govern- 
ment settled their debt. 

Poussin had not forgotten the kindness he had 
received from the King. “‘ I assure you, Monsieur,” 
he writes to Chantelou, “ that in the comfort of my 
little house and in the poor repose it has pleased God 
to give me, I am Still conscious of a certain regret 
which has affected me so deeply that I find myself 
unable to rest by day or by night. But whatever 
happens I am resolved to bear the good and the evil 
that befall me.’’ His affairs were indeed in an 
extremely precarious condition. He was at a loss to 
know whether he should go on with the work that 
Noyers had commissioned, or whether he should 
give itallup. Finally, he decided to finish the draw- 
ings of the life of Hercules for which the authorities 
in Paris were clamouring. He was also still super- 
vising and directing the army of moulders and copy- 
ists who were working for the decorations of the 
Louvre. In his report to Chantelou he says: ‘‘ Mig- 
nard has made his copy of Raphael as different in 
colour from the original as night from day; without 
having shown it to me or to M. Errard, he took it 


65 


Nicolas Poussin 


home and copied it there... .”” He adds that another 
painter, Le Vieux, has made a very poor copy, and 
that the Neapolitan, Ciccio, could do well enough 
if he would only work, but that he is uz mort and has 
only half finished. There was further trouble over 
the payment of all three painters and sculptors, who 
haggled and tried to overcharge. Besides these 
responsibilities, Poussin had all the anxiety of packing 
and dispatching the works when they were at last 
finished. 

During the two years he had spent in France he 
had become acquainted with all the rich amateurs, 
bankers, and merchants who were interested in the 
arts. ‘These were now anxious to possess his work, 
and there was keen competition among them. One 
of the reasons of his popularity was that he was 
the only French artist who painted small cabinet 
pictures that could easily be hung in any private apart- 
ment, and made to fit into the panels. We may per- 
haps be permitted to regret that his patrons’ com- 
missions were so often for subjects from the Old and 
the New Testaments. | 

But it was not only the bankers and merchants who 
commissioned him; the great statesmen and ministers 
of the day were also among his clients. Fouquet 
prided himself on having ordered designs for the 
marble Termes in his gardens; they are now in the 

| 66 


Return to Rome 


north and south guwinconces at Versailles. Colbert 
consulted him deferentially about various projeéts for 
the facade of the Louvre and ordered several pictures 
for the royal collections. One of these was the 
famous “‘ Shepherds of Arcady.’’ It is the only 
picture of Poussin’s that might be described as 
making a bid for popularity, if such a thing can be 
said in connection with any of his work. It was a 
theme that must have interested him deeply, for he 
has painted two entirely different versions. The 
picture is an idyll with a moral attached. Some 
Arcadian shepherds, at play on a fresh breezy morn- 
ing, have suddenly come across a tomb; one of them 
kneels and traces with his finger the inscription: 
ET EGO IN ARCADIA VIx!! and for an instant, thoughts 
of death cross the minds of these young shepherds 
and fill them with melancholy. In this picture the 
artist has, in Croce’s phrase, found “‘ complete 
expression.’’ Nothing could be more beautiful than 
the grouping and attitude of these shepherds. Haz- 
litt, writing about the picture dwells on “ the clear 
breeze playing with the branches of the shadowy 
trees, ‘ the valleys low, where the mild zephyrs use,’ 
uninterrupted sunny prospects that speak (and ever 
will speak) of ages past to ages yet to come!”’ 

Before he became so well known, Poussin generally 


painted the mythological subjects that he loved, and 
67 


Nicolas Poussin 


in which he excelled. We recall “ The Empire of 
Flora,” ‘‘ The Triumph of Pan,” “‘ Leda and the 
Swan,” “ Echo and Narcissus,” and many wonderful 
Bacchanalian scenes, declared by Ruskin to be 
“always brightly wanton and wild, full of frisk and 
fire.” But on his return from France we find that his 
pictures take a severer and a more religious tone. 
For the banker, Pointel, he paints “‘ Eliezer and 
Rebecca ”’ and “ The Judgment of Solomon ”’; for 
the French Ambassador, the duc de Crequey, a 
“Holy Family’; for Le Nétre, “The Woman 
taken in Adultery.” For Cérisier, the rich Lyons 
merchant, he produced no less than eight pictures, 
including ‘‘ Esther before Ahasuerus ”’ and the won- 
derful scenes from the life of Phocion, which are 
supposed to be the best landscapes he ever painted. 
Phocion, it will be remembered, fell a victim to the 
ingratitude of the Athenian democracy and was 
condemned to drink hemlock; it was also ordained 
that the body should be denied burial within the 
confines of the city. In one of these pictures two 
bearers are seen carrying the body beyond the limits 
of the town, while a festive procession passes in front 
of the temples, thus manifesting the complete indif- 
ference of the Athenians. In another an old woman is 
seen gathering up the ashes at Megara. 

Poussin’s patrons were probably more interested 

68 


PAN AND SYRINX 


Painted 1637-39. (Dresden Gallery) 


(to face Pp: 68) 


Return to Rome 


in pictures of ancient Greek history than we are to-day, 
but in these canvases it was evidently not the incident 
that so much concerned Poussin as the tranquil land- 
scapes, the temples reflected in quiet pools, the flocks 
of sheep grazing by the roadside, the masses of trees 
and the distant mountains. The picture representing 
“The Burial of Phocion,” recently discovered in 
Jersey, inspired Fénelon to imagine one of his 
‘ Dialogues of the Dead ”—between Parrhasius and 
Nicolas Poussin. Seventeenth-century patrons do not 
appear to have considered landscape alone to be a 
sufficiently important subject for a picture. This 
probably accounts for the convention which insisted 
that some mythological or historical theme should be 
added to the landscape; a convention which we find 
not only in Poussin but also in Claude Gellée, Gaspar 
Dughet, Sebastian Bourdon, and all the eminent 
French and Italian painters of the time. In those 
glorious canvases of Claude Gellée, for instance, no 
one can take much interest in the curiously ineffective 
figures in “* The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca,”’ the 
*“ Narcissus and Echo,” or the “‘ Death of Procris.”’ 
Poussin was less hampered by the convention, for he 
excelled no less in landscape than in figure; but 
Claude Gellée did not, and he knew it; he used to say 
that he sold his landscapes, but that he gave away his 
figures. 


69 


Nicolas Poussin 


Meanwhile, Poussin’s enemies in Paris, headed by 
Simon Vouet, were still active, and working against 
him in various ways. When he heard that the house 
which Louis XIII had given him for life, and which 
had lain empty and dismantled for two years, was to 
be made over to someone else, his anger knew no 
bounds. Though he had definitely decided never to 
return to France, he was indignant at what he con- 
sidered a great injustice. Here, perhaps, was one of 
the inconsistencies of a great mind; he could not 
endure that his house should be taken from him. “ I 
am in despair,’”’ he writes to Chantelou, “to see that 
there is no obstacle to such injustice. Now that I was 
feeling inclined to return to enjoy the comforts of my 
own country, there where everyone wishes to end his 
days, 1 see myself deprived of that which was most 
likely to tempt me to go back. Is it possible that 
there should be no one to defend my rights, no one 
who will make a stand against the insolence of a 
vile creature, a lackey? Is it possible that no one 
should defend my cause ? Have the French so little 
feeling for their sons who, by their virtues, have 
done honour to their kingdom and their country ?”’ 
The house was, as a matter of fact, given over 
to Samson Lepage, the King’s Maréchal-des- 
loges. 

These same enemies in France were able to stab 


7O 


Return to Rome 


him in another quarter. As soon as the paintings of 
the Seven Sacraments were finished, he sent them to 
Chantelou. They all met with the severest criticism 
from his rivals, and ‘‘ The Baptism,” which is con- 
sidered to be the best of the series, received the harsh- 
est judgement of all. Chantelou allowed himself to be 
influenced as Noyers had been before him ; neither, 
unfortunately, having any real knowledge of art, they 
were always too ready to listen to rival painters. 
Chantelou appears to have been dissatisfied, and to 
have thought that Poussin had put more “ love ”’ into 
his picture “‘ Moses saved from the waters,” for the 
banker Pointel, than into “ The Baptism,’’ which had 
been painted for him. Poussin rebuked him severely. 
“Why,” he writes, “‘ have I preferred you for the 
last five years to so many people of merit and quality 
who were so anxious for me to paint something for 
them, and who put their purses at my disposal ? Why 
was I contented with such modest payment that I. 
refused to take the sum you offered me ? Why, after 
sending the first of your pictures with only sixteen or 
eighteen figures, and I could have done the others 
with the same number, or fewer, in order to lessen my 
labours, did I enrich them with no thought of any 
interest than of gaining your good will ? Why have 
I given up so much time, running here and there in all 
weathers, for your private service, if it was not to show 


7I 


Nicolas Poussin 


you how much I[ honour you ? I will say no more, I 
must give up the term of servitude I have devoted to 
you.... Ifthe picture of Moses found in the waters 
of the Nile in M. Pointel’s possession pleased you so 
much, is it a sign that I put less love into your pic- 
tures? Do you not see that it is the nature of the 
subject which is the cause, and the subjects that I 
paint for you must be represented in a different 
manner ? All the art of painting is contained in this. 
Pardon my liberty if I say that you have been too 
hasty in the judgement you form of my works. Good 
judgement is very difficult if one has not both great 
knowledge and great practice in this art.” Let us 
hope that Chantelou profited by this remonstrance. 
Poussin suffered from what so many artists have 
suffered from both before and since : the ignorance 
of his critics ! 

He was expected not alone to execute all the com- 
missions given by Chantelou, but to accept those 
that this gentleman’s family and friends chose to give 
him. His brother was to have a “ Baptism of St. 
John,” his fiancée a “‘ Repose in Egypt,” and his 
friend Scarron an “ Ecstasy of St. Paul.” 

In Le Génie Latin, Anatole France tells us that 
Scarron, when he was in Rome, in 1634, met in the 
outskirts of the city a man a few years older than 
himself, who was already the glory of French art. 

“pe 


(zl - aovf 02) 


(a1Ano’y) ‘nojayuryD ap “I 10J g€gr ur pajuieg 
LaYasad AHL NI VNNVW ONIYAHLVS SALITAVUSI AHL 


ae 
>» 


— 


paths 


ne 8 A 


y 
t ier iy owe 
i = 
are J 
*) ® 
‘ ; . 
a Fey 
ae ek 

< 


Return to Rome 


This man was Nicolas Poussin; he was of sober 
habit, grave and modest, and of a sublime genius and 
simplicity. The abbé had a keen appreciation of 
painting, and in his leisure hours dabbled in it him- 
self; he contrived to pick up an acquaintance with 
this retiring person, who, with his young wife, lived 
as simply as any workman of the period. There 
could not be any real intimacy between them; 
Poussin was keenly alive to the beauty of things; he 
was stirred by the grandeur of the horizon, the noble 
line of a building, or the pure form of a group of 
women and children in the Campagna. But Scarron’s 
taste lay in another direction; he was attracted by the 
life in the cabarets, the quarrels and uproars, the 
turbulent joys and violent passions of the people. It 
was nature in her degradation and deformity. that 
appealed to him, and that he rendered with such 
animation. Scarron does not appear to have made a 
very long stay in Rome, and soon was back in Paris. 
Some years later, we find him begging Chantelou to 
persuade Poussin to paint something for him. Bur- 
lesque in art was most offensive to Poussin ; he did 
not, like some French critics of to-day, regard 
Scarron as the precursor of Moliére, but rather as 
a man who made game of the legends which he, 
Poussin, especially loved. When Chantelou urged 
him, Poussin suggested doing him a Bacchanalian 


iS 


Nicolas Poussin 


scene, thinking this would be most appropriate and 
likely to please. But not at all. Scarron demanded 
something very serious; why not a theme that should 
bear on his own name, Paul? So it was decided that 
he should have an “* Ecstasy of Saint Paul.” In 1650, 
after a delay of years, the picture, which now hangs 
in the Louvre, was finished, and rapturously re- 
ceived. But Scarron, to Poussin’s intense annoyance, 
persisted in sending him his books as they ap- 
peared, although Poussin had written to Chantelou 
expressing his distaste for them in very strong 
language and saying that he would much rather not 
have them. ‘“‘ He now menaces me with a Virgile 
travesti, and thinks he will make me laugh like the 
cripple he is himself, but on the contrary, | am more 
inclined to weep, seeing that a new Herostratus? is in 
our midst.” 

In 1648 Poussin painted one of his most famous 
pictures for M. Lumagne, the Genoese banker, 
‘ Diogenes throwing away his bowl.” This is now, 


" On a night in July 356 B.c., the birthday of Alexander the 
Great, the goddess being absent on attendance upon the labours 
of Olympias, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was burned to the 
ground. One Herostratus of Ephesus under torture confessed to 
the exploit from a desire to immortalize himself. His name was 
condemned to oblivion, but has nevertheless survived “a fly in 
amber” (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, iii, 3). 


yess 


Return to Rome 


or rather it was in 1914, in the Hermitage, Petrograd. 
By 1649 he was receiving so many orders that he was 
obliged to refuse any further commissions for the 
next two years, owing to the enormous amount of 
work he had on hand. Among his patrons were 
Cardinals Massimi, Omodei, and Rospigliosi, who 
afterwards became Pope Clement IX. 

And so his life went on for another sixteen years, 
with occasional breaks of ill-health. His habits were 
simple. He rose early, and very soon after dawn 
would walk for a couple of hours, either through the 
Streets or on the Pincian, climbing the steep shady 
path which led to the finest view in Rome. Here his 
friends would meet him, and they would discuss any 
matters of interest. He would then go home and 
work till midday, when he dined. afterwards return- 
ing to his studio; in the evening he would stroll out 
again and wander among the crowd of foreigners who 
gathered together on the Piazza di Spagna. He was 
always surrounded by a number of friends and fellow 
artists, who formed a kind of escort. He was cele- 
brated for his conversation, and his society was 
eagerly sought by every person of note who visited 
the city. He frequently talked on art, more from the 
point of view of the artist than of the professor, and 
all he said was listened to with the profoundest atten- 
tion. His influence was very considerable, and he 


cB, 


Nicolas Poussin 


was recognized on all sides as one of the foremost men 
of his time. 

One day when walking among the ruins of the 
Pincian with a stranger, who was anxious to take back 
with him some fragment of antiquity, Poussin said: 
“| will give you the most beautiful thing you could. 
possibly desire.”” Whereupon he picked up from the 
grass a handful of dust—remains of cement, marble, 
and porphyry, reduced almost to powder. “ Seign- 
eur,’ he said, “ take this away with you; this dust is 
ancient Rome.” The anecdote is chara€teristic of the 
man; it reveals the whole spirit of his art and life. 

Bellori tells us what sort of impression Poussin 
made on the frequenters of the Piazza. The lawyer, 
Bonaventura d’Argonne, says: “I met him among 
the débris of ancient Rome and sometimes in the 
Campagna or on the banks of the Tiber, making 
drawings of everything that struck his fancy. I have 
also seen him carrying home in his handkerchief 
different stones and moss and flowers, which he 
intended to paint from nature exactly as they were. 

I asked him, one day, by what means he had 
reached that high perfection which gave him such 
distinguished rank among the greatest painters of 


2999 
ec 


Italy. He replied, simply: ‘ Je n’ai rien négligé. 


76 


Photo. National Gallery 
VENUS SURPRISED BY SATYRS 
Painted before 1640. (National Gallery, London) 


(to face pf. 76) 


Chapter V: Last Years 


N 28th December 1655 Louis XIV signed the 

brevet confirming the title of Peixtre ordinaire, 

given to Poussin by his predecessor, and con- 
tinuing his pension. Poussin was in great need of the 
money, for though he had lived frugally, keeping no 
servant, he was very far from rich. The story goes 
that when Cardinal Massimi, who had stayed till past 
midnight in conversation with Poussin, was seen by 
him into his carriage, Poussin carrying the torch, the 
Cardinal remarked: ‘‘ How I pity you having no 
servant!’ to which Poussin replied: “I pity your 
Excellence much more for having so many.” 

The faét is that Poussin never asked large prices for 
his work; he had a horror of being taken for one of 
those painters who are rather picture dealers than 
artists—these are evidently of all time! He was even 
known to refund money if he thought he had received 
too much. He considered it reasonable that the 
painter should be paid according to the amount of 
work he had put into the picture, and the number of 
figures on the canvas; so it would follow that 
possibly a large biblical composition would be sold 
for a thousand écus and a little mythological theme for 
a couple of hundred. From what we can gather his 
prices never seemed to have varied, at least from 1630 


77 


Nicolas Poussin 


onwards, nor did it occur to him to increase them 
when he became famous. He was perfectly happy 
and satisfied so long as he was allowed to work with- 
out interruptions. 

As early as 1657 we find him writing to Chante- 
lou, for whom he was painting a “‘ Conversion of 
Saint Paul”: “They say the swan sings more 
sweetly when he is nearing his end. In imitation of 
him, I too will try to do better than ever and perhaps 
this will be the last service I shall render you.” 
Poussin never had very good health. He was 
equally sensitive to heat and cold. In August 1660, 
he writes: “‘I do not pass a day without suffering.... 
The extreme heat at the present season completely 
upsets me; I have been obliged to give up all work 
and to put aside my colours and brushes. If I live 
till the autumn, I hope to take them up again.” He 
was to live for another five years, and to paint one of 
his most famous pictures; but he had a trembling 
of the pulse which made his hand shake so that at 
times he could neither paint nor draw, and his eyes 
had suffered from his habit of reading far into the 
night. 

According to Bellori, who only knew Poussin when 
he was past middle age, he was tall and well pro- 
portioned, with an olive complexion and black hair. 
‘There was something celestial in his eyes; the nose 


78 


(gZ ‘d aov{ 02) 
tryiaq Suinasn YOLIpotig-iasrey ) 
ed FA Melt pe ete 


VAHLIVNV LVOSD AHL AGT GAHSIYNON UALidnal 
uNDAG 010 


: gh tina ay 
ee ee ee ree 


Last Years 


was pointed and his broad spacious brow gave great 
nobility to his face.’’ All this can more or less be 
seen in the portrait he painted of himself for Chan- 
telou, now in the Louvre. There is another por- 
trait of Poussin, by an unknown artist, in Dresden, 
where he is represented in profile, which confirms 
the fine impression of the painting in Paris. 

During the last years of his life Poussin was very 
much troubled by his wife’s failing health, as also by 
her family, who seem to have become entirely depend- 
ent on him. Gaspar Dughet had managed to make 
some reputation as a landscape painter, but his work 
was poorly paid. He did some frescoes for the 
Borghese, Palavicino, and Colonna Palaces, and for 
the vault of the church of San Martino-dei-Monti. 
His landscapes had a certain element of poussinesque 
nobility; but he became a thorn in the side of his 
brother-in-law, who was constantly complaining of 
him, and at last found him so unreliable that he was 
obliged to disown him. Gaspar’s brother, Jean 
Dughet, the engraver, was much more satisfactory; 
he was Poussin’s secretary and attended to all his 
accounts. But neither these two, nor Louis, the third 
brother, were ever able to earn a living; this perhaps 
explains the comparatively small amount that Poussin 
left at his death. 


Poussin was never seen with his easel out of doors 
: 79 F 


Nicolas Poussin 


or painting any landscape on the spot; yet no one 
ever gave a truer picture of the Roman Campagna. 
He would study a scene and make notes of the colour, 
carrying the broad impression of it in his mind—a 
system which is very much in favour among many 
French artists of to-day. But, if Poussin never painted 
out of doors, he undoubtedly made innumerable 
Studies from nature, generally in sepia, and many of 
these fine drawings have been carefully preserved in 
our museums and private collections. He belonged 
to the school that, in Renoir’s phrase, “‘ corrected 
nature,”’ as distinct from the impressionists of our 
day who draw things exactly as they see them. Ina 
letter to Noyers he says: ‘‘ There are two ways of 
looking at things, one to look simply, the other to 
look with attention. To look simply is to receive only 
the natural impression of the form and resemblance of 
the object looked at. But to look with attention in- 
volves not only the simple reception of the form in the 
eye, but also the effort to understand the object with 
the idea of particular application. Thus one can say 
that the simple 4sped is a natural operation, and what 
I call Prospect an office of the reason.”’ Here Poussin 
evidently attaches a special meaning of his own to the 
word “ prospeét.”’ 

He preferred to go to the antique for all suggestion 
of movement, and in many instances borrowed the 

80 


Last Years 


actual attitudes of well-known statues; he used the 
living model only to give the sense of life to his 
figures; and when he tried to convey emotion it was 
through the movement of the whole figure; here he 
was once more following the Greek methods. 

It is not fully realized to what extent the form and 
design in Poussin’s pictures add to their power and 
distinction. The magnificent drawings found in his 
Studio after his death were for the most part in sepia, 
touched up with chinese white in the high lights. 
There were also trial sketches for compositions, the 
heads of the figures left featureless, mere indications 
for arrangement and grouping ; masterly and very 
free wash and pen studies of trees and landscapes, 
evidently done on the spot from nature ; and others 
highly finished in every detail for use in his pictures. 
When the important work, now in preparation in 
Paris, of facsimile reproductions of nearly all his 
drawings has been published, we shall be better able 
to appreciate Poussin as a draughtsman. Had he 
left these drawings alone, they would have been 
enough to establish his reputation among the greatest 
artists of Europe. 

His system was a laborious one. He painted 
slowly, but he never put a touch that was unnecessary, 
that had not its meaning; and he never tormented his 
paint. His method was direct, unhesitating, sure, 

SI 


Nicolas Poussin 


and entailed infinite labour. He would first make a 
finished drawing of the subject; but this alone did not 
satisfy him: he would proceed to make models in 
wax of all the figures in the nude, having carefully 
studied the poses; finally there would be another 
model, this time on a larger scale, the figures being 
draped in coloured paper, silk, or cloth. Ifthere were 
any buildings in the composition, these too would be 
carefully modelled in wax. The whole group would 
be placed in a box or cube; in the case of an interior, 
lighted by church or other windows, the model 
would show these at the correct height so that the 
light should fall from the proper angle and direc- 
tion. 

Leonardo’s Treatise on Painting had just been 
translated into French, and Poussin made the illus- 
trations for it. He had always desired to write one 
himself, but never could spare the time from his 
work. We have already mentioned that Bellori, in 
his Vite de’ Pittori, has printed some fragments or 
Osservazioni from this projected treatise, but in these 
Poussin’s ideas were naturally not fully developed. 

In 1665, the year of his death, he finished his 
famous “‘ Deluge,’”’ for the duc de Richelieu, and 
began a large canvas, “‘ Apollo and Daphne,” for the 
Cardinal Massimi; this promised to be one of his 
most important compositions, but he died before it 

82 


(zg °d anf 07) 


(Araypey [euorjeN) ‘obgt a1ojaq nalpaystry Ao powured 


AONVG NVITIVNVHOOVE 
‘(4ajjvQ) [DUCLIDAT 0104 I 


Last Years 


was finished. The picture in its incomplete con- 
dition remained in a private collection for a couple of 
centuries, and was only bought for the Louvre about 
fifty years ago, where it hangs as a pendant to the 
“Triumph of Flora.” In treatment this painting 
combines the early Roman style with Poussin’s later 
manner, and for this reason it has been hung near the 
‘Flora’; the landscape, curiously, recalls Normandy 
rather than the Roman Campagna. 

Poussin’s health was now failing, and what strength 
he had went into his work. He was already detached 
from the things of this world. When he heard of 
Pozzo’s death he received the news without emotion. 
His wife had been ill for some time; she suffered 
from a kind of low fever, and he spent a whole month 
at her bedside. No remedies were of any avail, and 
towards the middle of October 1664, this life-long 
companion passed away, leaving her husband in the 
deepest sorrow. 

Colbert, who had just been appointed Surin- 
tendant des Bdtiments, was anxious to continue the 
work at the Louvre. He proposed to do away with 
Poussin’s decorations in the Long Gallery, and to 
Start some entirely new scheme of his own. But 
Lebrun, still devoted to his old master, prevented it 
and thus spared Poussin this humiliation. There is 
an interesting story, dating back many years, in which 


8 3 


Nicolas Poussin 


Lebrun figures; it is about a picture of his called 
“‘ Horatius Cocles defending the bridge.” This 
had been shown at a féte in Rome; the name of the 
painter being withheld, but everyone believed it to 
be by Poussin and complimented him on it. He was 
much perplexed as he knew nothing about the pic- 
ture. Young Lebrun went to see him and suggested 
that they should go together and see this mysterious 
canvas. It was very obviously a close imitation of 
Poussin’s work. At first he felt some resentment 
against this unknown imitator, but when Lebrun 
confessed that he was the painter, all Poussin’s 
resentment vanished, and he warmly congratulated 
his young disciple. ‘The picture now hangs in the 
Dulwich Gallery; for many years it was attributed to 
Poussin, an extraordinary blunder considering that 
it is a mediocre, lifeless work, with none of his dis- 
tinctive and characteristic qualities. 

After his wife’s death Poussin wrote sadly to 
Chantelou: “I beg you not to be surprised if I have 
been so long in giving myself the honour of sending 
you any news. When you know the reason you will 
not only excuse me, but you will have some compas- 
sion for my unhappiness. For nine months I have 
had my good wife ill in bed with a feverish cough, 
which after a thousand useless remedies, consumed 
her to the bone and caused me the greatest anxiety; 


84 


Last Years 


she dies when I had most need of her help, leaving me 
weighed down with years, paralytic, full of infirmities 
of all kinds, a stranger without friends (for in this 
town friends are not to be found). Such is my con- 
dition! ‘They tell me to have patience, which is the 
remedy for all ills. I listen and take their advice as I 
would take a medicine which costs nothing, but which 
also cures nobody. 

“Seeing myself in this condition, which cannot 
last, I am anxious to prepare myself for the end. 
With that in view, I have made a short will, in which 
I leave more than ten thousand écus of my money to 
my poor relations in Andelys. They are coarse and 
ignorant people who, when they receive this sum after 
my death, will have great need of the help of some 
trustworthy and charitable person. I beg you to lend 
them a hand in their need, and advise and protect 
them, so that they will not be robbed and deceived. 
They will come to you humbly. I feel assured, in the 
experience I have had of your kindness, that you will 
do this willingly, as you have done so much for your 
poor Poussin for the last twenty-five years.”’ 

Chantelou writes to assure him that he will assist 
the nephews. But, unfortunately, he let them know 
of the precarious condition of their uncle and of the 
terms of his will; with the result that one morning 


Mathias Le Tellier, the eldest of them, arrived at 
85 


Nicolas Poussin 


Poussin’s house in Rome. ‘The society of this noisy, 
vulgar young man gave no pleasure to his uncle, who 
wrote that he was unspeakably annoyed by “ this 
miserable, ignorant, and brainless rustic who has 
come to disturb my peace.’’ His impertinence and 
his thoughtlessness became so great that Poussin at 
last could stand it no longer, and he sent the boy 
away. 

The end was very near. In the month of Septem- 
ber he was seized with bad feverish attacks and 
developed other alarming symptoms. His mind, 
however, was clear to the last. He felt that his days 
were numbered, sent for a notary and dictated his 
third and final will. In this he left his brothers-in-law, 
Jean and Louis Dughet, 1,300 and 800 écus; other 
sums were apportioned to his sister-in-law and her 
children, while the unwelcome visitor, Mathias, was 
disinherited and Jean, his younger brother, whom 
Poussin had never seen, became his sole heir. He 
lingered for another month suffering and confined to 
his bed; at midday on 19th November 1665 he died 
“after having comforted himself,’’ Dughet writes 
Chantelou, “like a perfect Christian and Catholic, 
with all the Sacraments of the Church. The priests 
who assisted the dying man,’’ he wrote, “‘ were so 
touched at his pious sentiments that they, too, grieved 
and bewailed the loss of so great a genius.”’ Indeed, 

86 


Last Years 


his death was mourned on all sides. The Abbé 
Nicaise’s correspondent in Rome wrote: ‘‘ The 
Apelles of our century is dead... .” 

His body, most simply attired, as he had prescribed 
in his will, was carried to the parish church of San 
Lorenzo-in-Lucina, and lighted torches placed at each 
end of the bier; it was then laid in the coffin and 
buried in the church, a simple tablet, with an epitaph 
in indifferent Latin by Bellori marking the site. All 
the members of the Academy of St. Luke, every 
artist of note, and every Frenchman who happened to 
be in Rome, attended the funeral. By 1799 the 
original epitaph had disappeared. Poussin was for- 
gotten—at least in Rome—and the site of his grave 
was lost. It was not until 1829, when Chateaubriand 
was Ambassador there, that, shocked and indignant 
at this neglect, he decided to do something to com- 
memorate the memory of his great countryman. 

It was a bad moment for French art. The artists 
of Louis Philippe’s time were no more inspired than 
our own of the same period. As the actual site of the 
grave had been lost, another was selected in the 
church, and Lemoyne’s monument was erected. 
There is some irony in the fact that the memory of the 
greatest French artist, the man of the most fastidious 
and exquisite taste, whose life was spent in one 
endeavour to produce works equal in beauty to the 


87 


Nicolas Poussin 


Greeks, should be commemorated by one of the most 
mediocre monuments. It 1s a pedestal surmounted 
by an indifferent bust of Poussin, with a poor bas- 
relief of ‘‘ The Shepherds of Arcady.”’ An inscrip- 
tion was added, associating for all time the name of 
Chateaubriand with that of Nicolas Poussin. It runs: 


F, A. p—E CHATEAUBRIAND 
A 
Nico.tas Poussin 
Pour LA GLOIRE DES ARTS ET L HONNEUR DELAF RANCE 


NICOLAS POUSSIN 
NE AUX ANDELYS EN MDLXXXXIV, 
MoRT A Rome, MDCLXV 
ET INHUME DANS 
CETTE EGLISE. 


88 


Chapter Six: Notes on 
‘Technique 


AINE, in his Philosophie de [ Art, declares that 
all artists are inspired, or at least deeply influ- 
enced, by the surroundings in which they are 
born. Thus, the art of Rembrandt is said to spring 
from the dim light of Dutch interiors, that of Velas- 
quez from the arid landscape and brilliant Spanish 
sunlight where figures stand in bold relief against 
deep blue skies; while the glowing colours of Vene- 
tian sunsets are reflected in the canvases of Titian and 
Bellini. This ingenuous theory, however, does not 
hold good in the case of Nicolas Poussin, whose 
early surroundings can have had nothing in common 
with his classic landscapes, religious dramas, or 
Bacchanalian festivals. In these there is no recollec- 
tion of the ‘* Vexin Normand,” where he was born 
and spent his childhood. His art offers no suggestion 
of his early impressions; no trace of French land- 
scape, French thought, or French influence. He 
transplanted himself; broke away, not only from his 
native village, but from his native land. 
The pictures he painted in his youth have unfor- 
tunately been lost, and we can form no conjecture as 
to their nature. The work of his that we know 


89 


Nicolas Poussin 


begins only after he had already spent several years 
in Rome and had become a master of his craft. We 
are therefore entirely unaware of his graduation 
period; of the efforts, the strivings, the possible 
changes, that led to the splendid result. We are able 
only to consider him as the finished artist. 

We have early pictures of Velasquez which show 
that his one desire, and from the very beginning, 
was to interpret nature, to paint what he saw before 
him, no matter how drab, prosaic, or commonplace 
—pots, pans, cooking utensils; his one endeavour 
was faithfully to render these things in colour. His 
treatment may have been rather hard, but he gave 
minutely truthful representations of nature, and we 
learn from them what his innate tendencies were, how 
uncompromising was the realism that never wavered 
throughout his life. Indeed, to the very end, he 
never drew anything that he did not actually see, and 
as his art became more perfect, his touch and vision 
truer, the result was only a more subtle, completer 
realization of his original desires. 

This was not the case with Poussin. What he 
saw around him apparently interested him less than 
the images he created in his mind. We know that 
he read all that had been written about ancient Greek 
art, and it was the traditions of this art that he sought 
to revive. Although it is doubtful whether he ever 


gO 


(06 *¢ asvf 7) 


(ar1Ano’y) 
HLVdAd Ad GHOVNAW SSANIddVH 40 ‘XaVOUV JO SQuYaHdYHS AHL 


> s 7 
>. age 


a- eee 
‘ 3 


7 § 
+ 
—— 
* 
1 S a 
' ie 
, ‘ 
re 
. 
’ 
- 
. 
. 
nm 
An e 
we 
‘ 
- i 
id . 
-“ ‘ 
‘ 
a ts 
— 
pr 
- 
i 
' 
1 . 
& 
1 
, 
n 
} 
ni 
_ 
> - 
4 oh 
j- 
ia = 
wv, 
¥ =) 
, = 
| mre, 
“y 
: * 


Notes on Technique 


saw any actual Greek work—with the exception of 
the Aldobrandini fresco, which he copied so marvel- 
lously—the tradition haunted him, and moulded his 
life. As with the masters he dreamed of, his pictures 
were all the outcome of his imagination alone; and 
there is no canvas of his that can be described as a 
mere representation of any actual scene his eyes had 
beheld. 

Velasquez interpreted nature; Poussin used na- 
ture, not as a model to be interpreted, but rather as 
a language through which he expressed his thoughts 
and rendered the whole scale of human emotion. 
We have only to recall any one of his masterpieces to 
realize what a vast demand this made upon his power 
_ of invention, his inward vision, and his mighty crafts- 
manship. 

He did not, however, as is so often the case with 
lesser men, allow his technical knowledge in any way 
to weaken, or hamper, his creative instinct; with him 
the “idea” was always uppermost, and he would 
untiringly make drawing after drawing until he had 
discovered the exact, the final, the unerringly suitable 
form of expression. Sir Joshua has charged him with 
artificiality; but Sir Joshua’s critical faculties were 
not of the widest, and he was apt to condemn all work 
that did not rigidly conform with the canons that he 
had laid down. He found fault with Rembrandt and 


Ol 


Nicolas Poussin 


Poussin for precisely those qualities—their original 
and personal vision—that we to-day especially 
admire. All art, from the mere faét that it is not 
nature, must necessarily, in a sense, be artificial ; 
Jean Francois Millet declared, at the end of his life, 
that he was only just beginning to understand the 
just balance between the two—art and nature. It 1s, 
indeed, a problem that every artist is called upon to 
solve, and in his own way. Poussin’s method was a 
wise and generous system of selection. He took 
what suited him ; a close student of nature, he none 
the less suppressed such details as were not essential 
to his idea. Can he be called artificial because, in the 
pictures that were entirely the creation of his own 
mind, he deliberately arranged and posed his figures 
in accordance with his own conception of rhythm and 
beauty ? What Sir Joshua describes as artifice is in 
truth supreme artistry. Years of labour had fashioned 
the style that Poussin so essentially made his own. 
His principal aim, his main endeavour, was to 
re-create the atmosphere of the theme he was painting, 
to put it in its own essential milieu. When the subject 
was biblical or mythological, he concentrated all the 
powers of his mind on giving it a biblical or mytho- 
logical environment. It was in this particular treat- 
ment that he differed so widely from the other 
painters of his period. He knew that art was not 


Q2 


Notes on Technique 


merely a realistic rendering of nature, that its highest 
form was the interpretation of ideas and emotions 
expressed through the personal vision of the artist. 
He used nature as a composer uses his orchestra; but, 
like the composer, he dominated it and refused to 
allow it to dominate him, thus achieving the rare and 
extraordinary unity that we find in all his pictures. 
He was seldom a realist, in the present sense of the 
word, and yet in the age in which he lived he was a 
pioneer of realism. His imagination was so rich and 
fertile that he was able to create a world of fantasy in 
which his nymphs and fauns, his shepherds and 
shepherdesses, seem actually to live, to have an 
existence of their own. Neither Titian nor Rubens 
was able to contrive the atmosphere that surrounds 
Poussin’s mythological scenes, or invest them with so 
glowing a sense of life. In what other painter can we 
find such a riot of joy as in ‘ The Triumph of Pan,”’ 
such exuberance, such wild ecstasy, and at the same 
time such realistic imagination ? 

But Poussin, unlike Blake, was never led by the 
abundance of his creative faculty to take liberties with 
nature, to distort or falsify; he refused to sacrifice 
truth, or the proportions and nice drawing of his 
figures, to the idea. Blake and Poussin had this much 
in common that their pictures were primarily the 
fashionings of their own mind; but Blake would not 


93 


Nicolas Poussin 


hesitate to elongate or contraét a figure if he could, 
by so doing, more readily express his idea. Not so 
Poussin; he was too fine a craftsman to dream of 
resorting to such an expedient; in all the vast mass 
of his work, save only when it has been restored or 
re-painted, we may look in vain for any instance of 
loose, slovenly distortion or drawing. It is in this 
precise quality that his genius most essentially reveals 
itself; it is here that he towers above his successors 
and imitators, the lesser men to whose failures we owe 
the phrase “the literary picture,’ invented to de- 
scribe pictures in which the anecdote, the “‘ literary ”’ 
interest has predominated over the aesthetic, and all 
beauty of design and colour have been relegated to a 
secondary plane. One might name, as a striking 
example of this bad art, Holman Hunt’s “ Triumph 
of the Innocents,” unfortunately in the National 
Gallery. 

There is one remarkable point of contact between 
Blake and Poussin, whose general methods differed 
so widely; they both preferred to convey emotion by 
the action and gestures of their figures, rather than 
through facial expression. In Blake’s mystic water- 
colours, as in Poussin’s biblical or historical canvases, 
we find the same almost doll-like faces, the same 
inclination to make the attitude of the figures reveal 
their joy or sorrow, their adoration or despair. 


94 


(+6 +d v0nf ct) 


(Asay[e [euoneN) ‘grgr Ssaistiag “Py 1of paqured 


NOIOOHd : NIVLNONOd V LV Ladd SIH ONIHSVM AATIAAVAL AHL 


uO PUuor'y Sh IPD [BUOLD AT 0104 


nN 


Notes on Technique 


In composition Poussin was an innovator no less 
than an iconoclast. The Renaissance masters had 
established it as a canon that there should be one 
main group of figures on a canvas, one primary mass 
of light and shade, to which all lesser groups and 
masses should be subordinated, the strongest shadow 
and the highest light falling on what might be the 
principal incident. While still under the influence of 
the Venetians, Poussin accepted this convention, but 
broke away from it as soon as he became acquainted 
with the Greek ideals. He adopted the manner 
of the old Roman bas-reliefs, grouping his figures 
in one plane, generally in the foreground of the 
picture; he stretched them right across the canvas, 
making scarcely any distinction between primary 
or secondary groups, while the landscape, or archi- 
tectural background, would be suspended behind 
them, more or less like a stage curtain. He was no 
less daring in his treatment of light and shade; here, 
too, he would dispense with primary and secondary 
masses, distributing lights and darks almost uni- 
formly through the composition. This peculiarity 
gives the distinctive note, the flatness of appearance, 
that reminds us, at times, of the early Italian frescoes. 

It is when we compare these quiet, unobtrusive 
paintings—such as “‘ Eliezer and Rebecca,” “‘ The 


Triumph of Flora,” or ‘‘ The Blind Men of Jericho ” 
95 G 


Nicolas Poussin 


—with works of Titian or Tintoretto, that we realize 
most fully the austerity of Poussin’s methods, and the 
intellectual quality of the emotion that they produce 
in us. He aims at no startling or sensational effect; 
there is no exuberant glow or wealth of colour to 
dazzle at first sight; his pictures are, as it were, a 
book that one has to read, and read with care; they 
reveal their beauties slowly, and demand more than 
a passing and superficial glance. Beneath the serene 
surface of his work treasures are hidden for all who 
care to look for them; behind his reticence is an 
ecstasy which all may share. 

Indeed colour was, to Poussin, a seduction that had 
to be resisted; he was austere in his handling of it, 
attaching far more importance to form. ‘Titian’s 
‘Bacchus and Ariadne ’”’ is a glowing mass of vivid 
blues and reds, browns and yellows; Poussin, in his 
‘* Echo and Narcissus,” his “ Inspiration of Apollo,” 
contents himself with the most subdued tones, the 
quietest of harmonies. He loved the restrained effet, 
the delicate, subtle note; and these were blended so 
skilfully that the uninitiated might almost regard 
them as monochrome. But into this general scheme 
of pearl-like greys and blues he will at times flash 
some strong note of orange-red, as in the tunic of the 
huntress in “The Nursing of Jupiter”; and it 
“sings,” as painters say, because of the quiet grey- 


96 


(g6 *d aovf 07) 


(a1Ano’J) 9 “4aISIIaD "YY 10 paqured 
NOIOOHd AO TVINNE AHL 


"S 


cd 


4 


ae 


Notes on Technique 


ness that surrounds it. French artists call this treat- 
ment “‘ le criard dans le gris.” 

Poussin’s principles and methods were deep- 
rooted, but he would vary his manner of painting in 
accordance with his theme. “I do not always pipe 
the same tune,”’ he writes in one of his letters, “‘ and 
I can change when | want to.”’ He would not paint a 
“ Blight into Egypt ” or a “‘ Judgment of Solomon ” 
in the same way as a “‘ Triumph of Pan ”’ or a “ Leda 
and the Swan.” Composition, colour-scheme, hand- 
ling would all be different, but perhaps the main 
distinction would lie in the conception formed in his 
mind, the conception of the theme itself. There was 
a realistic side to his imagination that enabled him to 
paint certain scenes—as in “‘ The Philistines smitten 
by the Plague ’’—with a power so intense that, like 
Defoe in his Diary of the Plague, he almost persuades 
us that he has been a spectator. In some of his 
canvases there would be unity of idea; in others, of 
sentiment; he could be lyrical when he wished to; 
but no matter what his theme or method, there would 
always be in evidence the spirit of restraint which 1s so 
strongly opposed to the uncontrolled sentimentality 
of the romantics. 

We have said that he was a slow and deliberate 
worker. His pictures were always well thought out 
in every detail before a single touch was put on the 


97 


Nicolas Poussin 


canvas; nothing was left to chance. He considered 
that those who hurry, “‘ like your Paris painters,”’ do 
nothing well. If he finished one head in a day, and it 
had the desired effect, he was satisfied. He worked 
daily for two months at the composition of ‘‘ Con- 
firmation,’’ in which there were thirty-two figures. 
He was fond of quoting the Italian proverb: ‘‘ Med- 
lars only ripen with time and straw.” 

Félibien tells us that Poussin would be just as fresh 
at the end of the day’s work as he was at the begin- 
ning, because “ the fire that warmed his imagination 
was always at the same heat and the light that burned 
in his mind was steady and pure.”’ His palette, with 
the colours all carefully arranged, was neat and 
orderly; and the man himself, with no thought of the 
greatness or fame ahead of him, pursued his steady 
and even way, like the honest craftsman that he was, 
and in all modesty and conscientiousness created the 
masterpieces that still, and will long, survive. 


98 - 


Chapter Seven: His Work and 


Influence 


I'THIN so small a compass it is not possible 
to do justice to the vast volume of Poussin’s 
work. In the galleries of Europe and America 


there are at least three hundred and forty pictures 
recognized as being by him. He left thirteen 
hundred drawings of extraordinary interest, of which 
one hundred are in the Library at Windsor. His 
output was colossal. For nearly forty years he painted 
without a break, and his range of subject was unusu- 
ally wide; he excelled in landscape as in figure, and 
handled biblical, historical, and mythological themes 
with equal facility. 

His religious pictures are perhaps of less interest 
to-day than at the time when they were painted, but 
there are many masterpieces among them. One need 
only mention such works as “ Baptism ’”’ and “ Con- 
firmation ”’ in the Second Series of the Seven Sacra- 
ments, “‘ The Israelites gathering Manna,” the dra- 
matic “‘ Descent from the Cross,” or ‘‘ The Worship 
of the Golden Calf.” 

But perhaps the most remarkable of all these is 
‘The Deluge ” at the Louvre, one of the last that he 
painted; it belongs to the series of the “ Four 


99 


Nicolas Poussin 


Seasons,”’ based on subjects from the Old Testament, 
and represents winter. Ruskin failed to understand 
its symbolic meaning, and found fault with the repre- 
sentation of rain. He did not realize that Poussin’s 
intention was entirely a moral one; that he was trying 
to express the death-Struggle between nature and 
man; not a Deluge of rain, but a Deluge that was a 
scourge of mankind, showing the misery and horror 
of it and man’s prayers and appeals to a pitiless 
heaven. He intended the whole picture to be 
dominated by a feeling of death-like despair; the sky 
is a dreary grey, and the sense of slimy green desola- 
tion envelops everything. Into this picture Poussin 
put all the suffering and resignation, all the philo- 
sophy and wisdom of his last years. He knew that 
his days were numbered; the Deluge was a dramatic 
conclusion to his life. 

There is scarcely a critic of note who has not 
written about this painting. Diderot sang its praises 
in 1765, Goethe was enthusiastic about its terrible 
beauty. Horace Walpole wrote “one picture is 
worth going to see at the Luxembourg alone; it is 
the ‘ Deluge’ by Nicolo Poussin,” and he describes it 
as ‘““ the first picture in the world of its kind.” In the 
nineteenth century it was extolled by Chateaubriand, 
Delacroix, Millet, and Bonnat. Among the more | 
recent to admire its marvellous dramatic force are 

100 


(oor *¢ anf 0) 


(atAno7y) ‘"[a}UIOg “Jy OJ QhOL UT pajuled 
VOOddaAA AGNV WAZAITA 


His Work and Influence 


Rodin, Romain Rollan, Maurice Denis, and Picasso. 
Only Ruskin and one other critic, Thoré, thought 
the “ Deluge”” empty and dead. They failed to 
recognize that Poussin was aiming at something 
much more and much greater than a mere winter 
storm. 

Among other famous landscapes are the well- 
known “‘ Polyphemus ”’ and “‘ Hercules overcoming 
Cacus ”’ at the Hermitage, and the series forming the 
Life of Phocion. These give all the grandeur, the 
serenity, and magnificence of the Roman Campagna. 
Poussin has made these qualities so much his own 
that Ingres has said of him, and with justice, that he 
was the first to imprint sfy/e on nature in Italy. He 
has identified himself to so great an extent with these 
particular scenes that the French have invented the 
word poussinesque to describe any great expansive 
landscape. 

Ruskin devoted an entire volume of Modern 
Painters to the disparagement of this classic landscape, 
of which Poussin is the greatest master, especially 
singling out for his blame Gaspar Dughet and Claude 
Gellée. But he has only succeeded in giving it fresh 
life. He insisted on the superiority of Turner’s 
pictures to Claude Gellée’s, but to-day, these canvases 
hanging side by side in the National Gallery speak for 
themselves. 

IO] 


Nicolas Poussin 

In his criticism of Poussin’s “‘ The ‘Traveller 
washing his feet,’’ one of the Phocion landscapes in 
the National Gallery, Ruskin was no more successful. 
He speaks of this scene as “‘ one of the finest land- 
scapes that ancient art has produced—the work of a 
great and intellectual mind,” and then charaCteristic- 
ally proceeds to abuse it. ‘“‘ The first impression 
we get,’’ he declares, ‘‘ is that it is evening, ... but in 
reality it is supposed to represent full noon, the light 
coming from the left, as is shown by the shadow of the 
staff on the right-hand pedestal. Is this a true repre- 
sentation of sunlight ? The only truth in the picture 
is the exact pitch of relief against the sky of both trees 
and hills.... Compare with these Turner’s treat- 
ment of the ‘ Mercury and Argus.’ ”’ 

Ruskin has here fallen into a curious error, as 
anyone who is at all experienced in painting sunlight 
can see ata glance. ‘The picture was never meant to 
represent full sunshine. The effect Poussin intended 
is Clearly that of a clouded sky, the sun hidden, and 
not shining on the scene at all, except for one gleam 
in the middle distance which pierces the clouds. The 
shadow which the staff casts on the pedestal is clear 
proof of this, for if Poussin had intended sunlight— 
and no one knew better than he how to paint it—this 
shadow would have had sharp, crisp edges, whereas 
the edges here are soft, what painters call ‘‘ loose.”’ 

102 


His Work and Influence 


Ruskin does admit, however, that the beautiful 
“Triumph of Flora” at the Louvre taught Turner 
the use of definite flower or blossom-painting in 
landscape. Also in comparing Sir Joshua’s ‘‘ Holy 
Family ”’ at the National Gallery with the “‘ Nursing 
of Jupiter’ at Dulwich, he gives all the honours to 
Poussin. ‘“ Reynolds owing to lack of all botanical 
details has lost every atom of ideal character and 
reminds us of nothing but an English flower garden 
—the formal pedestal to complete the effect— 
Poussin’s, in which every vine leaf is drawn with 
consummate skill and untiring diligence, produces 
not only a group of most perfect grace and beauty, 
but one which in its pure and simple truth belongs to 
every age of nature and adapts itself to the history of 
all time.” 

The mythological pictures which Poussin painted 
between 1628 and 1640 are marvels of colour, move- 
ment, invention, and imagination. They are perhaps 
his finest achievement. In that wonderful ‘‘ Sleeping 
Venus surprised by Satyrs ”’ in the National Gallery, 
all the desire of the satyr is revealed as he bends over 
the sleeping Venus and tears away the drapery, yet we 
feel the aloofness, the detachment of the artist, just as 
in Flaubert’s description of the meetings between 
Rodolphe and Emma in the garden at Yvetot. There 
is something universal, of all time, about this painting. 

103 


Nicolas Poussin 


Most of Poussin’s critics agree that in his mytho- 
logical pi€tures he was second to none, not even to 
Rubens. These have lost nothing by the passage 
of centuries; their interest is as great to-day, they 
give as much aesthetic pleasure as when they were 
painted. Here Poussin could give free play to his 
delight in movement, his passion for the nude; here 
he could be, as d’Annunzio would say, “* magnifica- 
mente sensuale,” he could express all his joy in these 
strange voluptuous legends, in their poetry and 
romance. No painter has ever invested this mythical 
past with so much reality, with so much atmosphere. 
In these Triumphs of Pan, these Bacchanalian Dances _ 
and Festivals, he carries us back to the pagan world, 
and his Nymphs and Satyrs belong intensely to that 
world, and not to ours. The figures in these Festivals 
are curiously non-human; sometimes the nymphs 
have tails instead of legs, and bestride their goats with 
ease and simplicity, naturally, as if to the manner 
born. What with some painters becomes gross or 
coarse, in Poussin’s work is lifted to a kind of ecstasy 
of natural desire. With him the spirit of paganism 
lives again, and we understand what the religious 
orgy meant, and the place it held in ancient wor- 
ship. 

Hazlitt has made an interesting comparison be- 
tween Rubens and Poussin, in their treatment of 

104 


(tor +d agv{ 01) 


(atAno’]) ‘OSgi ul paquirg 


OHOINal AO NAW ANI1d AHL 


His Work and Influence 


Nymphs and Fauns. ‘‘ Rubens’ Satyrs and Bac- 
chantes,” he says, “‘ are more drunk with pleasure, 
more full of animal spirits and riotous impulses, 
but Poussin’s have more of the intellectual part of the 
character and seem vicious on reflection and of set 
purpose. Rubens’ are more specimens of a class, 
Poussin’s are allegorical abstractions of the same 
class, with bodies less pampered, but with minds 
more secretly depraved.” 

A curious fact about Poussin’s work is that little 
attention is given to it by ordinary visitors to the 
Louvre or the National Gallery. ‘They will look at 
Titian, Velasquez, or Rembrandt, they are more or 
less familiar with the French school of the eighteenth 
century, with Watteau, Fragonard, Chardin—yet 
Poussin, by far the greatest of all French painters, 1s 
little more to them than a name. Diderot says in his 
Essay on Painting, that ‘“‘ Nothing appeals so much in 
a picture as real colour; it impresses alike the ignor- 
ant and the learned: a demi-connaisseur will pass by a 
masterpiece of drawing, expression and composition, 
but the colourist is never overlooked.” ‘This will, 
perhaps, account for the fact that Poussin is so scantily 
appreciated by the general public. His quiet, unob- 
trusive pictures have so little of the sensational ele- 
ment in them; their rather austere character appeals 
to the mind rather than to the senses. He had a 

105 


Nicolas Poussin 


horror of anything Startling or exaggerated; he 
avoided all violent contrasts of colour, of light and 
shade; he never tried to attraét by the superficial. 
He was the painter of the emotions, and it needs 
more than a cursory glance to understand him, and 
to realize the perfect balance of design and composi- 
tion, the grace of his figures, the unerring taste in 
every detail. Like Henry James and Marcel Proust 
he calls for a certain attention and concentration, but 
Poussin’s mind was crystal clear ; he was the painter 
of ideas, but there is nothing vague or mysterious in 
any of his pictures. He knew exactly what he wanted 
to do, and did it simply, directly, and without hesita- 
tion. It has been said of him that he was among 
painters what Milton was among poets, and that the 
temper of his mind was rather that of a Bach than of a 
Beethoven. In fact, there is in his work a grand 
austerity that ranks him with the noblest of poets; a 
power of melodious, almost symphonic, expression 
found only in the greatest composers. 

Among those who understand art, Poussin’s repu- 
tation stands as high to-day as it did in the seventeenth 
century. There must be some strange and inexplic- 
able power in a man whose fame has endured through 
the changes of taste for close on three hundred years. 
As early as 1667, two years after his death, the 
Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture chose his 

106 


His Work and Influence 


pictures for demonstrative lectures, which were after- 
wards published by M. Youin. Lebrun discoursed 
on “‘ The Israelites gathering Manna,’ Sebastian 
Bourdon on “The Blind Men of Jericho,’ and 
Philippe de Champagne on “* Eliezer and Rebecca.” 
The academicians were prodigal in argument and 
illustration. MM. Desjardins, in his life of Poussin, 
gives us some idea of these lectures. In accordance 
with the methods of the time, every detail in the 
pictures was elaborately explained; a moral meaning 
found in every pose; each figure was compared with 
the antique by which it was believed to be inspired. 
Félibien’s analysis of “‘ Rebecca” fills fourteen 
quarto pages, “The Manna”’ twenty-one. He 
declares the Israelites in this picture to be too 
emaciated; does not the Bible state that they had just 
been fed on a flight of quails; how could the quails 
have been forgotten? Philippe de Champagne 
regrets that Poussin has not been more “ historically 
accurate”’ in his treatment of the subject in the 
‘““ Rebecca,” and has left out the camels which are 
mentioned in the scriptures. To which Lebrun 
magisterially replies: ““ M. Poussin rejected these 
unfamiliar objects because the spectator might have 
been amused and distracted by them at the expense 
of matters of more importance.” ‘The unfortunate 
Students of the newly founded academy cannot have 
107 


Nicolas Poussin 


gained much benefit from these strangely inartistic 
criticisms! 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century there 
was a slight reaction, and some adverse criticism 
appeared. Roger de Piles in his 4brégé de la Vie des 
Peinires, published in 1699, confesses to a secret 
distaste for this “ rather austere painter, who has a 
tendency to greyness.”’ Such was also the opinion of 
Voltaire. But this depreciatory attitude was short- 
lived. M. Desjardins tells us that the encyclopaedists 
recognized a kindred spirit in him, ‘‘ an advocate for 
that sane philosophy which makes for the happiness 
of society, a master of the passions and enthusiasms.” 
He adds that Poussin’s paintings are not so much a 
mirror held up to nature as an expression of a man’s 
mind, in the same sense that Descartes expressed 
himself in the Méditations or Bach in his Cantatas. 
In England, Sir Joshua Reynolds found fault with 
what he called Poussin’s “ dryness of manner,’”’ but 
wholeheartedly admired him for his great simplicity 
and his unity of style. 

Diderot and Fénelon were both enthusiastic parti- 
sans. Goethe, in his Letters and Conversations, 
frequently refers to the pleasure that Poussin’s won- 
derful landscapes have given him. In the nineteenth 
century there is scarcely an adverse criticism. Men 
as different in their aims as David, Ingres, Millet, 

108 


(gor ‘d asvf 02) 
(a1Ano'yT) ‘bg-oggt Snatjaysty ap onp ay) 10J pajureg 


SNOSV4S YNOA AHL AO UALNIM “WO SADN1IG AHL 


His Work and Influence 


Puvis de Chavannes, Degas, and even Cézanne (who 
told his pupils that he wanted to “‘ faire du Poussin sur 
nature’’), have all in their turn done him reverence. 
Even Delacroix, the head of the romantic school, was 
one of his most ardent advocates. ‘‘ Asa scrupulous 
and poetic observer,”’ he says in his Fournal, “* both of 
history and of the movements of the human heart, 
Poussin is unique.” He intentionally brackets 
Raphael, Rembrandt, and Poussin together because 
“they, more than any other painters, shone through 
their intellects.”” In another place he notes that he 
himself ought to make more sketches and take more 
time over his work. With this object in view he feels 
that he should have beautiful engravings of Poussin 
in his studio so that he may constantly study them. 
When his stove is out of order and he is turned out 
of his aze/ier till it is repaired, we find him going to 
the Louvre to spend his time in front of Poussin! 

The enthusiasm of Ingres and David, both fol- 
lowers of the classic tradition, was only to be expected. 
David frankly acknowledged Poussin as his master; 
and, whenever the composition of a picture offered 
any difficulty, he would go to the Palais Royal and 
find a solution there. But Ingres was of all the most 
passionately devoted. An idea prevailed in his time 
that Poussin suffered, much more than was actually 
the case, from the envy and jealousy of people in high 

109 


Nicolas Poussin 


places. Voltaire believed it and declared that Poussin 
had been ‘‘a victim to envy and cabals, a fate which 
has befallen more artists than one.”’ But the idea that 
Poussin had been persecuted appeared almost to haunt 
Ingres. After his death a rough draft of a character- 
istic Ingres allegory was found among his papers. 
Bad Taste is shown tenderly embracing a monster, 
and repulsing the spirit of Beauty, while Mediocrity, 
wearing a crown, reposes beside the sleeping figures 
of Vengeance and Justice. France turns from 
Poussin, who, tormented and distracted, throws him- 
self in despair into the arms of Italy. Ingres imagined 
that it was owing to Poussin’s constant conflict with 
bad taste that he only painted comparatively small 
pictures. But what Ingres most valued in him was 
his unswerving devotion to the antique. ‘“‘ Poussin’s 
genius,”’ he declares, ‘‘ would never have carried him 
so far nor so high in the philosophy of painting, had 
he not studied the ways of ancient masters with so 
much devotion.” 

Ingres was among the first to realize how great was 
the influence that Poussin exercised, not only on 
French art, but on the whole art of Europe. It was 
Poussin, Ingres declares, who, when the great 
Renaissance in Italy died down with the Carraccis 
and Domenichino, inherited the high authority of the 
Italian school, and adding to it his own great personal 

IIO 


His Work and Influence 


expression and profound individuality of thought, 
transmitted it to France. But while Ingres praises 
Poussin as the standard-bearer of tradition, Delacroix, 
in the series of articles written for the Moniteur of 
1853, declares him to be a quasi-revolutionary like 
himself. “* It has been so often repeated,”’ he writes, 
‘that Poussin is the most classic of painters, that to 
hear him spoken of in this essay as the most ardent 
revolutionary in the history of painting will probably 
come as a surprise. It was Poussin’s misfortune to 
live in a period when schools were full of manner- 
isms, and the technical side of art was placed above 
the intellectual. He broke away from all this insin- 
PELILv sie 

According to many Frenchmen this essay 1s the 
finest piece of historical criticism we have on Poussin. 
Delacroix clearly established that he was a solitary 
figure, and in spite of his great reputation, still mis- 
understood by the men who came after him; “ the 
Academic brutalities of the Carracci,’’ Delacroix 
writes, ‘‘ which he for a moment arrested, revived 
after his death, and perhaps obtain to this day.” In 
the seventeenth century Poussin may well have been 
considered revolutionary; in the course of time the 
most ardent innovator, if he is a man of gentus, 
obviously becomes “ traditional.”” When his works 
have been continually Studied and referred to as 

III H 


Nicolas Poussin 


representing the best principles in art; when every 
painter of note has turned to them as to an inex- 
haustible source of knowledge and inspiration, and 
has drawn from them just what was valuable for his 
own peculiar temperament, then, indeed, it cannot be 
surprising that the innovator should come to be 
described as “‘ the standard-bearer of tradition.”” The 
revolutionary of to-day is the academician of to- 
morrow. 

To the man who places technique beyond every- 
thing else, to the virtuoso of the brush, Poussin will 
always remain dull and incomprehensible. Too 
many of our modern painters, having few ideas to 
express, content themselves with mere cleverness and 
dexterity in the handling of paint. ‘To these crafts- 
men Poussin may well appear uninteresting and out 
of date. He is the most pronounced of “ representa- 
tive’ artists. To Bernini he was the “‘ grande istoria- 
tore e grande favoleggiatore.”” None knew better 
than he how to make his painting convey an idea, how 
to tell a story. But to the ultra-moderns, to Derain, 
Matisse, and Picasso, whose principal aim is, perhaps, 
personality of expression in one form or another, the 
high imagination as it was understood by Hazlitt, 
Walter Pater, and Ruskin, no longer exists. To the 
painters of the twentieth century an orange on a plate 
with a napkin in the foreground, a beer bottle, an 

112 


His Work and Influence 


onion, or a bundle of carrots provide sufficient motive 
for half a dozen pictures. These artists are much 
more interested in solving technical problems than in 
the actual scenes they are painting. They are 
exponents of what M. Lhote has called imagination 
technique, in which it is claimed that the painter not 
only paints the material objects before him and their 
anatomy, but also the atmosphere surrounding these 
objects; that he shows the reflected lights falling 
from trees or sky beyond, which is invisible as yet to 
the ordinary spectator. Their imagination and 
invention go, not into the subject painted, but into 
the “ expression.”’ With these artists the “‘ literary ”’ 
trappings have all disappeared. 

But to the painter of “‘ Rinaldo and Armida ”’ 
‘* The Inspiration of Apollo,” subject was of eat 
importance. T’o him a bundle of carrots or onions 
would have offered but little scope. He was as much 
occupied with the subject he was painting as with the 
method of expression. He was less self-conscious 
than our moderns; he was rather the humanist than 
the technician, and it may be suggested, ex passant, 
that of the two it is the humanist that will outlive the 
technician. 

The movements of to-day, Impressionism, Cubism, 
Expressionism, the developments that first started 
with Manet and Claude Monet’s painting of light, 


113 


Nicolas Poussin 


have all their devotees to whom they sum up every- 
thing that can be desired in art. But these tendencies 
must necessarily be short-lived; they emphasize one 
aspect of nature, but that aspect is an incomplete one. | 
In art there is no such thing as progress, there are only 
reactions; and though all that is most alive in the art 
of to-day undoubtedly springs from these new schools 
we may Still safely affirm that Claude Gellée will out- 
last the Monets and Cézannes, and that we shall 
probably be admiring Raphael and Poussin when the 
Romantic school, the Cubists, and the Vorticists will 
have become as old-fashioned as Bouguereau or 
G. F. Watts. The men of genius in these movements, 
should there be any, may survive, because their 
genius carries them beyond the particular aim of their 
school, but who to-day really cares for Cubism ? 

It is the great draughtsmen, the men who under- 
Stood form, in the widest meaning of the word, who 
have made their mark in painting. These men 
followed the classic traditions and gave them new 
life. The most remarkable artists of the nineteenth 
century, Ingres and Degas, were both great draughts- 
men, and both objective in their methods. Ingres 
was a passionate sensualist who found expression in 
the cold classic form. Degas was classic in his con- 
ceptions, but his method of expression was that of an 
Impressionist. If he wished to represent the courti- 


114 


His Work and Influence 


sane ina night café, what he would give us would not 
be one particular woman of the streets, but the uni- 
versal courtisane. Here he showed how wide and 
impersonal, how objective, were his appreciations. 
But Poussin is classic both in conception and in 
execution. He was a sensualist whose sensuality 
passed through the crucible of a lofty mind; he was 
a poet, a man of wide understanding and deep sym- 
pathies, who painted saints and satyrs with equal 
insight; whose clear vision and profound knowledge 
place him among the Rembrandts and the Raphaels, 
the Miltons and the Bachs. He is the true repre- 
sentative of French genius; the steadying influence, 
the rejuvenating force, to which artists of all time, 
whenever they find themselves at a loss, must inevit- 
ably turn for instruction and new life, for sane and 
healthy inspiration. 


11S 


Ma i * I, ie ee ‘ Wag y 
yt bse yb | 


: a 
mee - 
44 
iy 
Le 


hy be a) 
- on j 4 
AMEN 


i. FRY 


' 


aey% 
¥ 


List of Books Consulted 


Correspondance de Nicolas Poussin, Société de l’histoire 
de l’art Frangais, published from the originals 
by Charles Jouanny. 

Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti moderni, Bellori. 
Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excel- 
Tents peintres anciens et modernes, Félibien. 

Vite de’ Pittori, Scultori ..., Passeri. 

Recherches sur Nicolas Poussin, Advielle. 

Le Poussin, sa Vie et son Qeuvre, Bouchitté. 

Nicolas Poussin, Emile Magne. 

Poussin, Paul Desjardins (Les Grands Artistes). 

Nicolas Poussin, Friedlander. 

Nicolas Poussin, Otto Grautoff. 

Discourses, Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Modern Painters, John Ruskin. 

Essays, William Hazlitt. 

Salons, 1765 and 1767, Diderot. 

Fournal d’ Eugéne Delacroix. 

Pensées d’Ingres. 


er, 


a ' 
ep p 
A_J, 
eee” 


LONDON: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD. 
CHISWICK PRESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 


; “a r 


Ay hy f a 4 th Ea ie 


: 7 s 
rr yet 
, Ps) + igi ree : 
J j a 2 


tos , 


thik ) { 


a) Par . 
te ve s if j Pay, 
ANE Sea 8 vik 
" ‘ 


+ ie th : - f 


Pio mar arr ine 


ai 
+n ) yh ae it 
Cire iY Adi mf 


whe 


WU 


< 
z 
< 
o 
ra 
7 
2 
2) 
= 
B 
= 
ue 
ie) 
a> 
= 
SH 
e Wl 
~ 
z 
= 


il 


Wyrreverserertersrerr rerrnterne rier? 
Snsacesnsncamasaeshoesesess 
Tee ee ieee i caneiagneentears Sasbeeh 
crpteprepierr rere rey petro ree Phot ge > 
ty ey rere 


